An Invitation to Participate

Greetings, Dweller of another Realm,

We, the Moving Crew, an artists group with members around the world, will construct a kingdom between June 15th and July 15th at the Bemis Underground, an art center in Omaha, Nebraska.

Forests, ports, shacks, gates, steppes, factories, a castle, and maybe a slum will materialize. Visitors to our realm will be issued passports, a guidebook, and a map, and they will explore our lands as their wills and whims direct them. Organized tours, migrations, illegal border crossings, all things are possible here. We will have outposts in the greater Omaha area, diplomatic missions and tourist bureaus to entreat and entice visitors to our domain.

The Moving Crew does not, however, exist in isolation. You, the rest of the world, are with us also. We therefore invite you to represent yourselves, you people rooted to your native soil, you people migrating through space and time, you people inhabiting your own kingdoms, fiefdoms, hovels, borroughs, districts, cantons, and lands. And so we, the Moving Crew, do hereby invite you to send to us a symbolic representation of your land in the form of a flag.

**If you so wish, we would also welcome tourist brochures, posters, ethnographic profiles, videos, advertisements, photographs of native costume and customs, official animals, gems, and flowers, and any other promotional materials you might find useful to educate the public about your kingdom. If any lands be so inclined, we invite you to send ambassadorial delegations, who may choose to travel on land, by sea, or air, on human-powered vehicles or through teleporters, to visit for a day or a week.**

We invite you to send us a flag to display outside the Bemis Underground, or inside the foyer area.

flag (flăg)n.

1. A piece of cloth, usually rectangular, of distinctive color and design, used as a symbol, standard, signal, or emblem.

2. National or other allegiance, as symbolized by a flag: ships of the same flag.

3. A ship carrying the flag of an admiral; a flagship.

4. A marking device, such as a gummed strip of paper, attached to an object to attract attention or ease identification; a tab.

5. The masthead of a newspaper.

6. Music. A cross stroke that halves the value of a note to which it is added.

7. A distinctively shaped or marked tail, as of a dog or deer.

8. Computer Science. A variable or memory location that stores true-or-false, yes-or-no information.

Technical specifications are minimal. Your flag can be any size or shape, and you can represent your realm using the materials, colors, and/or symbols that you think best. We ask that your flag has between two and four holes through which we can thread wire, rope or a snap-clip (see diagram if you need guidance). You can reinforce the holes with extra layers of whatever material you use to make your flag, or you can use grommets, such as are found on tarpaulins. If your flag is too delicate to hang outside, please note this when you send the flag. Otherwise, we will assume it is sturdy enough to be run up a flagpole outside and to withstand rain or wind.

All the flags will become part of our traveling exhibition and will continue to be displayed at all future Moving Crew events, in the USA, Europe, and Parts As Yet Unknown. We will make an online Gallery of Flags, so you can see your flag flying proudly in Omaha, and we will keep you updated whenever it flies in a new location.

Please RSVP stating your intent to send a flag by March 15th. All correspondence may be directed to the Master of Flags at movingcrew@gmail.com. (We'll send you the address for shipment upon receiving your statement of intent). We ask that you kindly send your flags to us no later than May 20th (postmark date).

Please include with your flag:

Name of sender, address of sender, any moniker you have for your realm, any other information or material that you deem pertinent about your realm.