We are watching

The #WeAreWatching flag is at the COP25 UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid with a clear message for world leaders: the eyes of the world are upon you.

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The flag is the size of a 10-storey building and on it thousands of faces, forming a colossal eye. The portraits represent 190 countries, almost every nation in the world. Together they’re holding leaders accountable for the future of our planet.

Last Friday 6th of December the flag was unveiled in Madrid as the Global Climate March arrives at Nuevos Ministerios, Greta Thunberg and over 500,000 participants were there.This is the main ask and the purpose of the March: “We seek to safeguard our future, right now in question. Enough of electoral fears, short-term measures and opportunistic deceptions. We demand the right to life: we are the nature that defends itself”.

“Right now there are 7.7 billion people awaiting decisive action; the whole world is watching”, say Dan Acher, the artist behind the WeAreWatching flag. Dan is an artivist, Ashoka Fellow and the founder of Happy City Lab. At the center of his work is art as generator of social change across local and global communities. Dan uses cities as playgrounds to create a sense of belonging; his large-scale installations create spaces where strangers come together and connect beyond their differences. Dan is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is also the creator of Borealis, The Northern Lights on Demand.

The flag set over the crowd at the March and Dan go to speak on stage just before Greta Thunberg and Javier Bardem. A beautiful and emotional moment, in which people from all over the world, from all ages and cultures were holding together the big eye.

The flag’s first tour of duty is at the COP25 UN Climate Change Conference, Madrid. After this, the installation will follow major events about climate change around the globe, keeping the eyes of the world firmly on key decision-makers.