About
DC/Adapters began in February of 2013 when I noticed adapted D.C. flags in a bunch of the food vendors' logos at Union Market, a local food hall. Ever since, I've documented every adapted flag that I've encountered, first on Tumblr and then on a variety of websites over the years. What began as a project driven by my individual curiosity – how common is flag adaptation in D.C. and what does this all mean, I asked myself back then -- has become a public research project about the power, adaptability, and persuasiveness of the D.C. flag's design.
DC/Adapters is a process-based project, which means that it's driven by a set of rules. For example, I only document flags that have been visually adapted, and not unaltered images of the D.C. flag on a t-shirt, to name one common instance. I only document adapted flags that I come across in my everyday movements around the District, rather than seeking out additions to the collection (and this method came to findings shared by others). This approach means that DC/Adapters is driven the unanticipated encounter, and it also means that DC/Adapters is not a representative sampling of flag adaptation across the entire District. What the project "samples," in the social scientific sense, is how I move through the city and what I happen to find (or what finds me).
I have two goals for DC/Adapters, which have remained constant over the years. First, I want to help people see D.C. differently, to experience the visual landscape of our community, and to be tuned into the ideas, arguments, joy, and humor articulated by adapted flags. Second, I hope that DC/Adapters also encourages people to participate in flag adaptation. I've become convinced that flag adaptation is a powerful tool for good in D.C., but I think we can do more to achieve statehood and defend home rule, resist gentrification, and more if we all embrace our inner artist-activist.
I’m Matthew Pavesich, and when I'm not photographing adapted flags, I direct the University Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University.
To learn more about DC/Adapters, check out:
- “A Public Humanities Experiment: DC/Adapters, 2013-Present,” Routledge Companion to Publicly Engaged Humanities Scholarship. Eds. Michelle May Curry and Daniel Fisher-Livne. Routledge (2024).
- “For More Than Display: D.C.’s Adaptable Flag,” Washington History: A Publication of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 30.2 (Fall 2018).
- An article about the project in The Washington Post (2015)
