Flag Project, Yeesookyung

The words printed on the banner read “Kapa Gama,” which is the Korean transliteration of “Kappa Kappa Gamma,” the name of a sorority in Lawrence, Kansas. This print belongs to a pair that conceptual artist Yeesookyung designed after encountering the sororities and fraternities in Lawrence. She invited KU students to write down words that describe such organizations and to make drawings based on these words. She then combined students’ drawings and created the flags of their imaginary sorority and fraternity. The banner format is likely inspired by her previous installation in 2006, where she created a huge chess board with flags of multicultural symbols.

To create a screen print, a printmaker uses a squeegee to force ink through a stencil onto a given surface. Each stencil must be affixed to its own mesh screen, and every color requires a separate stencil. The screen printer pushes ink through the mesh-covered stencil onto a sheet of paper or other surface waiting below. As ink passes through the mesh an image adheres to the substrate. Silk can be used as the mesh, and the process has traditionally been referred to as silkscreen printing or serigraph printing. Today common screen printing meshes consist of polyester and other synthetic threads.

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