Rainbow Patriots

At a time when patriotism is being hijacked by the far-right in order to promote the one and only legitimate version of a “Polish patriot”, Kasper Lecnim puts forward the idea of producing football scarves with the motif of the rainbow*. The artist thus puts two different sets of ideas and attitudes on a collision course. It leads to a discussion about the “capacity” of today’s patriotism and what its modern version ought to be like. As it turned out, producing this seemingly uncomplicated piece of knitwear was very difficult. A vast majority of companies manufacturing football scarves rejected the order in the form proposed by the artist.

* The scarves were originally made on Kuba Borkowicz’s initiative for an exhibition at the Oficyna gallery in Poznań in 2017.

photo by Małgorzata Kujda