Balbina
What The Flag?!

What the flag?! is a project by Greylight Projects (NL) in which artists design flags that are hoisted on flagpoles outside or inside the venues of the partners of Very Contemporary, the network of 12 contemporary art institutions in the Meuse-Rhine Euregion. The VC network partners invite artists (of their current exhibitions or as part of their collection) to design a print for the flag. Each institution then sends their flag to be shown at a partner venue in an act of exchange and re-circulation.

For the duration of What the flag?!, IKOB presents Thomas Weidenhaupt's flag Balbina. Taking the topic of Where am I standing? For this year’s What the Flag?! project quite literally, photographer Thomas Weidenhaupt depicts pop singer Balbina standing on a normally busy road. In a bright orange tunnel close to ICC Berlin, the singer is finding herself staged and clothed for the occasion of taking press pictures and posing accordingly while doing so. By coincidence a dead bird, lying crushed on the street, sneaks its way into the pictures as well, challenging the idea of this being merely a glamorous photo shoot. A second layer to this picture is the stand Balbina is actually taking in real life – supporting women’s rights in the music business as well as fighting the injustice of payments from streaming services. For taking this picture Weidenhaupt was nominated for the first Abbey Road Music Photography Awards in London in 2022. Thomas Weidenhaupt (*1983 in Eschweiler, Germany) is a self-taught photographer, mostly occupied with architectural and portrait photography. Mainly using analogue 35mm and medium format and instant cameras. Weidenhaupt currently lives nearby Aachen.

Links:
greylightprojects.org/what-the-flag/
verycontemporary.org/projects/wondertours-the-artist-project