Produced on the occasion of the Prix de Rome, 2013, this publication is the result of an extensive period of research into the history of the European Flag, opening up intriguing discussion on the changing socio-economics of EU nations, the disappearance of once booming textile industries and the strong individual identities of a union in flux.

Originally conceived for the Council of Europe, the successful design of the flag was later adopted by the European Union in 1985 whilst under the moniker of the European Economic Community. Designed by Arsene Heitz, a French draughtsman at the CoE, and Paul Levy, a Jewish-Belgian Holocaust survivor who worked for many years as the council’s Director of Information, the finalised design was presented to the CoE in 1955 at its headquarters in Strasbourg, Heitz’s hometown.

With contributions by Charles Esche, Mihnea Mircan and Council of Europe Archive.

Contributions by Liz Allan, Bik Van der Pol, Charles Esche, E. C. Feiss, Laymert Garcia dos Santos, Sarah Pierce, Eloise Sweetman, Paulo Tavares, Nato Thompson. Design by Anja Groten.

The School of Missing Studies started in 2003 as an initiative of artists and architects who recognized “the missing” as a matter of urgency. Investigating what culture(s) laid the foundations for the loss we are experiencing from modernization and how this loss can talk back to us as a potential site of learning, the School of Missing Studies is calling for a space to turn existing knowledge against itself to affect our capacity to see things otherwise, to trust that seeing, and to set one’s own pedagogical terms.

Sandberg Series n°1. Copublished with Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam.