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Brian Jungen is part of a younger generation of artists who have emerged over the last few years amid an active scene in Vancouver, Canada. He was born in Fort St John, British Columbia to a First Nations mother and a Swiss-Canadian father. This dual heritage, and the tensions and links between aboriginal traditions, pop culture and consumerism, often provide the themes and subject matter for his work.

Characterised by a startling use of materials and meticulous craftsmanship, Jungen transforms everyday objects into thought-provoking works which bring together the contemporary and the historic, the material and the spiritual.

For Tate Modern’s Level 2 Gallery, Jungen has created an enormous red flag constructed from an assortment of mass-produced materials: bags, hats, clothes, small plastic kitchen tools, umbrellas and other things are stitched together into a patchwork quilt. Inspired in part by Jungen’s interest in Greenpeace, and in particular the banners made by the members of this group, the colour and form of Jungen’s flag also refers directly to the workers’ anthem ‘The Red Flag’, originally written as a poem by Jim Connell, an Irish political activist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.