LONDON, ENGLAND.- Southbank Centre today unveiled a new commission by Tracey Emin entitled One Secret Is to Save Everything. The commission is part of the ongoing Flag project at Southbank Centre’s Jubilee Flagpole, situated in Jubilee Gardens. Emin’s 21foot x 14foot art work is printed onto flag fabric (knitted polyester) and will fly on the 100foot flagpole. The flag is single sided and is printed through (so one side is a mirror image) as per a traditional flag. The red text One Secret is to Save Everything sits upon a background of swimming sperm.

Images of flags have long appeared in Emin’s textile works. In The Simple Truth (1995), she positioned an image of the U.S. flag under the words ‘here to stay’. Her 1999 Turner Prize show included No Chance (1999), a fabric work featuring an image of the union flag alongside a host of stitched statements that comprised a chorus of defiant and protesting voices.

Tracey Emin said “I once went to an art fair in Berlin. I was wearing a black skirt with white starts on, black shoes with lime green socks and a yellow and red striped cashmere jumper. A gallerist said to me: ‘I guess, Tracey, today you are wearing your own flag?’ I thought about this for Southbank Centre and I thought about how I looked 10 years ago. It would be brilliant if we were our own flags. My father is Turkish Cypriot and speaks fluent Greek. My Mum is English from the east of London. I can make a flag very easily out of all of these components but instead I have made a flag from wishful thinking.”

Director of The Hayward, Ralph Rugoff added: “One Secret Is to Save Everything displays Tracey’s precise sense of paradox and ambiguity in subverting what might be a reassuring formula for happiness. We are delighted that Tracey has designed such a thought provoking flag for Southbank Centre.”

The flag was officially unveiled at 6pm on Friday 13 April and will fly until July 31. Following the ceremony, Emin gave a talk about her idea of happiness, as part of Southbank Centre’s 100 Ideas programme of events. Emin’s Flag is the second in a series of commissions for the site. The inaugural flag was White Flag at Half Mast by Yinka Shonibare, MBE.