I recently became an American citizen. At the swearing in ceremony, right before the Naturalization Oath of Allegiance, I looked at the faces of my fellow new Americans, with the majestic flag in the background. It appeared like these faces from different cultures, races, age, gender were part of, became one with the American Flag.
At that moment I decided to celebrate and honor my new identity as an Italian American by creating an artwork that represented that glorious day. The project idea is to 3D scan 4800 Americans and 3D print the faces in red, white and blue. Each person will be a piece of the mosaic of the American Flag.
I envision this project to be community based and driven. Each person who makes up the flag is a part of one of our neighborhoods, cities and country. They will have agreed to be a part of this art piece because of their pride in and sense of belonging to our nation. They will have come from a myriad of socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, and they will be as diverse as our country. Yet, in their 3D portraits they will all be equal in size, color combination and placement will be randomly scattered with no preference given to anyone as we are “One Nation Under God”.
The process of creating the flag will include an educational component. We will bring new and exciting technologies to our communities, share how 3D scanning and printing work and engage participants in discovering new technological and art frontiers.
Once the flag is completed, I will create an augmented reality environment to connect the participants with each other and with their stories so that it will continue to be a living art piece.
