Flagpole Project 

ArtPort Kingston has invited artists, designers, makers, and thinkers to submit flag designs for our new Flagpole Project. Launched in Spring 2025, the Project has been raising one original artist-made flag per month above ArtYard Kingston at 80 Smith Ave throughout 2025. Each new flag, raised in a communal ceremony, offers an opportunity to rethink the meaning and role of flags in contemporary society.

A flag is a powerful symbol–a human invention that serves both as a form of communication and a symbol of beauty, devotion, and reverence. As symbols of both unity and division, oneness and diversity, flags can evoke strong emotions, rally communities, and communicate ideas across vast distances. Historically, flags have represented nations, ideologies, and movements, but what do they mean to us now? How has their significance evolved? How might it continue to evolve over time? 

Run as an open-call, the program seeks designs and flag-like artworks that explore the potential of the flag as a means of communication at this present moment. Applicants were asked to respond to a number of prompts, including: How can the format be reinvented as a tool for connection rather than division? How can a flag transcend traditional symbols of territory, ownership, and conflict? Can a flag be used to unify diverse ideas, communities, and cultures?  

Follow @artportkingston on IG for more updates, and look out for future open-call opportunities to submit your flag design.

ON EXHIBIT:

Becky Brown,

‘Attention’ (2025)

September 20, 2025

ArtPort Kingston is proud to exhibit this flag of Becky Brown that uses wordplay to explore the most desired commodity of our moment: attention. Its phonetic double, “a tension,” speaks to the challenge of controlling this resource with so many forces competing for it. Blocky, robotic lettering is irregularly spaced, reflecting different speeds and lapses of attention. Brown uses the bold, graphic style of flags and billboard advertising, but the work’s “message” is an open-ended reflection on the value and vulnerability of attention itself. 

The composition is a visual poem, meant to be seen and read simultaneously. As a draped flag, its text may not be immediately legible, with words broken down into abstract letters and shapes, provoking curiosity. Depending on wind conditions, the complete text will come into focus. This scrambling of meaning challenges what a flag traditionally represents, instead reflecting our fragmented information landscape. 

About the Artist:

Becky Brown is a painter and visual artist born in Manhattan, currently living in Buffalo, NY. Her work uses hand-painted lettering, found text and irregular pattern to restore attention and a human touch in the face of advancing online culture. She received her MFA from Hunter College and is an Assistant Professor at SUNY University at Buffalo. Her work has been exhibited at PS122 Gallery, Arts+Leisure Gallery, The Drawing Center, Queens Museum, Pratt Manhattan Gallery and A.I.R. Gallery (all NYC); Last Projects (Los Angeles); Fort Gondo (St. Louis, MO); CICA Museum (Gyeonggi-do, Korea) and Religare Arts (Delhi, India). She has been an artist-in-residence at MacDowell, Yaddo, Millay, Edward Albee and Saltonstall Foundations, among others; and received grant funding from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Bronx Council on the Arts. Her work has been written about in the New York Times, the New York Observer, Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint and Art Spiel, among others. Her critical writing has been published in Art in America and The Brooklyn Rail.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS:

Niki Lederer, ‘Waste Not Want Not Waterway’ (2025)

June 29 - July 27, 2025

In Waste Not Want Not Waterway, Niki Lederer continues her commitment to material reuse, transforming discarded umbrella canopies into vibrant sculptural flags. Suspended and rippling with motion, the work conjures the language of maritime signals, flowing currents, and environmental urgency. The patchwork of synthetic materials—stitched together with nylon thread and webbing—evokes both the fragility and resilience of waterways under strain.

The title serves as both a cautionary maxim and a poetic provocation. By reimagining waste as raw material, Lederer not only critiques consumer culture but also offers a model for adaptive creativity. The grommeted construction references industrial functionality while celebrating handmade craft. Echoing the colorful chaos of urban detritus and the organic rhythm of tides, Waste Not Want Not Waterway becomes a call to both care and repair—a flag for the future.

About the Artist:

Niki Lederer creates sculpture from discarded materials harvested from New York City streets. Born in London, Ontario, and raised in Vancouver, she received her BFA from the University of Victoria and her MFA from Hunter College in NYC. Solo presentations of her sculpture include Kino Saito, Verplanck and Catskill Art Space, Livingston Manor in upstate New York.Group exhibitions in NYC include White Columns and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Venues outside of NYC include Wassaic Project and Terrain Biennial in Newburgh. Internationally, Niki has exhibited in Groningen, The Netherlands and Hamburg, Germany, with solo exhibitions in Canada at Open Space, Victoria, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Niki was a Brooklyn Navy Yard Visiting Artist, Brooklyn, NY, and has received a Papermaking Scholarship from Dieu Donné, Brooklyn. Niki’s work has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Toronto’s Globe and Mail, and The New York Times, among others. This spring she was awarded a Lewes Public Art Commission bringing her large scale sculpture to the Canalfront Park in Lewes, DE. 

Invisiblehand Press, ‘Love Spell, II’

May 3 - june 29, 2025

The May 2025 edition of the Flagpole Project featured an original flag design by invisiblehand press (@invisible_hand). Invisiblehand Press makes prints, books, and objects for ritual and ceremony. This spell, the second in an infinite series, was printed on paper with a vandercook 219 and wood type, by Lilah Friedland and Polina Malikin in 2024. 

Celeste Fichter ‘Wind is in the Change’

March 8 - April 26, 2025 

The Flagpole Project was launch on March 8, 2025 with an original flag design by inaugural artist Celeste Fichter (@celestefichter), and will be followed by the hoisting of a new flag per month throughout the year. Celeste Fichter’s Flag is a play on the phrase ‘change is in the wind’ that implies something new is coming our way. ‘Wind is in the Change’ suggests that the movement of the wind itself is the change. Part koan, part word play, the phrase on the flag can only be read when wind is present.

Artist Statement:

A driving force in my work is an insistence on the power of modesty. I use humble, no-frills materials, and center the unattended details of the everyday as subject matter. In the process of re-ordering the ordinary, I encourage the viewer to see the world sideways where the dominant culture that dictates value is not in charge. Recontextualizing artless actors allows me to expose the seemingly random nature of how worth is assigned and significance is defined. Championing the underdog is key. All the choices I make in the production of a work reflect this core concern. By rejecting conventional photographic presentation and embracing the ephemeral, informal, and non-spectacular, I can focus on making a lot with a little.