The genesis of the project Bandera Argentina – Art in Action is the vision of an artist that invites everyone, without any distinction, to participate and promote the National Flag as a tool that could make possible the preservation of national identity and values. This flag may then become a token of reunion and communion between Argentinians, with the collective construction as a starting point to achieve it. The project was planned and set in motion by artist Alejandra Mettler during the course of 2002 in Buenos Aires, as a response to the political and institutional crisis present at that time on the nation. Later the work began to extend to other cities of Argentine and the world.

Initially, the project was built on the realization of artistic community actions involving the knitting of clothes that when put together, created the big flag. The Argentinian Flag had a size of 130 metres long by 6,50 metres wide. The civil association Banderas Unidas accomplished to set in motion more than 70.000 hours of voluntary work, and later this same flag was fractioned and distributed as blankets to help the people affected by the big flood that took place in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. A photographic and audiovisual registry was made during all the community actions in the community centres, squares, neighbourg organizations, schools and temples of all beliefs, involving the participants that made possible the construction of this Argentinian Flag.

This reality was motivational to multiply the experience, as we believe this project encouraged community and social bonds through the making of the blankets-flags, giving new value to symbols and traditions among the participants of the experience. Following the making of the knit as an act of citizen consciousness, the participants decide and agreed where and to who to donate the blankets crafted with their own hands.

Today is time to knit new nations with flags that really embrace us all. We need to be together in order to become a flag, to proclaim respect for peace and human dignity.

The soul of this project is to unite us all knitting new consciousness, that could promote reflection and thinking, and to be able to celebrate our united flags, as a token of the social intertwine.

Our wish is to join together our knitted flags to record the union of effort and love, as a testimony of a world that has more justice and solidary. Embracing the vulnerable and stimulating a new weave that could reflect our integration and what it is more important, to give our thanks for being able to build friendships and bonds between us.

This act consists in knitting a single cloth, that later will be joined with others to make a universal weave that finally will transform itself in an act of generosity. This is a new ethic and an example of communion between different ethnic and cultural ties. The objective is to embrace, to cover up and benefit those who are more vulnerable in this society, as well as to strengthen our own identity.