A key motif in Võ’s work, the wooden flag with thirteen stars and stripes references the first flag of the United States. Here, the reading of the flag must be seen in relation to Võ’s own practice. Though he was born in Vietnam, his family fled the country in 1979 and resettled in Denmark. This experience sits at the core of many works by Võ. Given this context, the particular choice of appropriating the flag can be read as a critique of the US’s militarial ambition, overseas expansionism, and neocolonialism—tenets that, might be said, cut to the core of the nation’s founding and its associated icons.This work also draws on the transformative potential of wood, and how it might serve as a carrier for latent historiographies. The material’s storied pasts demonstrate Võ’s interest in converging different scales of influence: in this case, how geopolitical maneuvering intersects with the personal across generations. Flag was made with the wood of black walnut trees from Robert McNamara’s estate. McNamara was the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, during which he presided over—and has been credited with designing—the catastrophic Vietnam War. Võ purchased personal assets from Robert McNamara’s estate in 2012 and incorporated them into some of his works. McNamara’s only son, Craig McNamara, encountered these works, and the two formed an ongoing correspondence. This culminated in the younger McNamara ultimately inviting Võ to visit his family’s diversified farming operations in California. On the farm was an orchard of slowly maturing black walnut trees, which were highly coveted by the gun industry as they were of just the right height for crafting gun stock. Instead of turning these trees into weaponry for a sizeable profit, the McNamaras decided to clear the land for regeneration and planting instead. This wood was then made available to Võ, who used the material for works such as Flag, imbuing the work with a layer of material significance as it considers the transformative potential of wood itself.
