This work reimagines the Ghana Must Go bag , a symbol of forced migration and survival as the stripes of an American flag. Across its surface, the words DISPLACED are stamped like a bureaucratic verdict, while the phrase bag no fit hold us is spray-painted as resistance. The piece recalls the 1983 expulsion of West African migrants from Nigeria, where these checked bags became emblems of exile, and situates that history within America’s own present struggles over immigration and belonging.

By merging this fabric of displacement with national iconography, Flags for the Displaced asks: what does it mean to carry your world in a bag, only to be told there is no place for you to arrive? The work connects directly to my Planet 2.0series, where Earth itself becomes uninhabitable and humanity confronts the irony of being rendered “illegal aliens” in the cosmos.

Overall, this piece insists that the future is already entangled with past and present displacements. The flag is no longer a fixed symbol of nationhood, but a vessel for contested memory , a reminder that borders may shift, but the struggle for belonging remains.