A circle of 12 gold stars on a blue background.

For decades, EU politics have been reduced to flags and faces. This body of work aims at breaking with the visual monotony, seeking images that reflect the complexity, contradictions, and narratives shaping Europe’s most ambitious political construct.

#004494, #FFD617.
EC Blue, EC Yellow.

Two colours shaping the visuality of a political union—a (political) belief system, if you will. The European flag as the crucial symbol in the manifestation of a non-tangible, hardly defined pro-European vision.

This photographic essay addresses the transition of political ideologies from vague intellectual fragments—expressed in speeches and documents—into a solid state of matter, by translating them into the physical, the spatial, and, most importantly, the visual.

Taking the Quartier Européen in Belgium’s capital, Brussels, as a point of departure, this work inches along the displayed visuality of EU political communication, while aiming to follow what we are supposed to see, to witness, to record. Visitor centres, youth events, merchandise, guided tours—all directed toward the aesthetics of politics as an element of persuasion.

An entire city district as a green screen for the politically imaginary.
An entire continent adjacent to it as a less interchangeable backdrop.

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This photo book dummy critically engages with the formation of a political visual identity by systematically following the formal conventions, diligently outlined in the European Commission’s visual identity manual. Its design and structure reflect the procedural and spatial constraints encountered while photographing within EU institutions—where visual production is shaped by protocols, oversight, and the presence of press officers.

The flatbook binding reinforces the book’s bureaucratic form and aesthetic, resembling an official document stack, while the accompanying paper sleeve and laser-cut cover reference an often overlooked alternative design for the European flag. The spine of the paper sleeve presents the title of the work translated into the 24 official EU languages.

19 x 28cm, 135 pages, flatbook binding, laser-cut paper sleeve, 250g X-Per paper