Curator’s Choice: Vernacular Flags in Los Angeles

The Fowler’s senior curator of Latin American and Caribbean popular arts, Patrick A. Polk, will explore the history of African American vernacular flags and highlight key aspects of their creation and use. This program accompanies our current exhibition Art, Honor, and Ridicule: Asafo Flags from Southern Ghana. From the era of United States Independence to the present day, Black communities have used a wide variety of banners as symbols of collective identity, political solidarity, resistance to oppression, and religious affiliation, among other concerns. Polk will place special emphasis on the display of African American flags and flag imagery in Southern California.