Former Somerset House Studio artist Freddie Yauner has been commissioned to create a flag to coincide with SOIL, an exhibition of artworks and installations responding to the challenges of climate change, land use and waste by taking a closer look at the world beneath our feet. This Is A Red Flag with its cautionary SOS will fly above Somerset House as an urgent warning to ‘Save Our Soil’.

Yauner’sThis Is A Red Flag is inspired by William Morris who would give open air talks with a small red flag by his side. Best known for his textile patterns, the pioneering Arts and Crafts artist was also a social reformer and is considered a forerunner of the modern Green movement. Yauner’s original Red Flag was first shown at the William Morris Gallery last year and will tour institutes and organisations, including progressive food, farming and soil organisations.

Freddie Yauner professes a deep admiration for William Morris that manifests in an annual vigil. For the first three months of the year he grows his hair and beard to emphasise their physical resemblance, while parallels to Morris’s practice and thinking are evident throughout his work. Both share a commitment to craftsmanship and aesthetics coupled with the pursuit of a more sustainable relationship with nature.

While This Is A Red Flag flies above Somerset House, individual pocket squares made from the same madder-dyed silk – a natural pigment favoured by William Morris – will be on sale at the gallery shop. To conclude his vigil, Yauner will give a talk and present a selection of paintings made from pollen at the SOIL Spring Fair on 5 April. Using Morris’s ‘Golden’ typeface these dig beyond the surface to highlight the role of pollen evidence in soil as markers of the decline from huge biodiversity to monoculture.

Freddie Yauner is a London-based artist who applies critical design to leverage social change.

Yaner holds a BA in Design from Northumbria University and completed his MA with distinction at the Royal College of Art in 2009. He has taught and lectured at the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths and Central St Martins.

His work has been widely exhibited, most recently at Salt Mills (Saltaire), David Parr House (Cambridge) and William Morris Gallery (London) as well as the Museum of Modern Art (New York) who is among the public and private collections to hold his work.
SOIL is a groundbreaking exhibition that unites visionary artists and thinkers from around the world to explore the remarkable power and potential of soil.

Through a range of artworks, artefacts and innovative approaches, visitors are invited to reconsider the crucial role soil plays in our planet’s health. The exhibition delivers a message of hope and urgency, encouraging a more sustainable, harmonious relationship with the Earth – if we choose to act now.

Soil is more than dirt. Soil is a secret world at our feet, an ecosystem as diverse in life as our night sky is full of stars. The billions of bacteria contained in its rhizospheres do for plants what the microbes in our stomachs do for us: sustain life. Our relationship with soil is our connection to Earth itself. Without soil, there is no us.