The work includes eight flags: one connected to the island of Andros and the others to Greece, Turkey, Italy, Germany, the Unites States, Russia and China, countries that from historical times until today, have influenced and still influence the island’s life in different ways, and certainly financially.
As we know, the national flags with their colours, symbols and figures usually represent a state, a nation and its citizens. These specific eight flags do not hold their famous colours and symbols, as for example for the Greek flag the colour blue that symbolises the sea, and the cross that is connected to Orthodoxy.
On each one of these eight flags has been printed the image of a representative mineral and the currency of each country. A country’s mineral wealth and currency have always been and remain closely related, even though today’s economy is mostly immaterial and virtual.
Each country or place is no longer represented by an idea but only by the material and the currency: Andros by its distinctive dry-stone walls and ancient drachmas, Greece by its white marble and its euro that holds the image of the owl, Turkey by chromite and its lira, Italy by its marble and its euro that shows the image of the Vitruvian man, Germany by lignite and its euro with an eagle, the United States by coal and the dollar, Russia by uraninite and the ruble, and China by iron and the yuan.