Sam Oerlemans & Yahya
Netherlands / Iran
A heart-to-heart connection
Yahya and I began by talking about what peace meant to each of us. Instead of giving me an answer, he asked me a question: “What do you do when you see a child crying?”
Whatever I answered, he kept asking questions, taking us deeper until we reached the heart of what peace meant to him: a heart-to-heart connection.
As we worked, designing the flag became less important than our conversation. We spoke about the differences and similarities between our cultures and tried to understand each other’s way of seeing.
That was not always easy. Yahya imagined peace very literally, while I naturally translate ideas into abstract forms. We sometimes struggled to bring those perspectives together — and perhaps you can see that in the final flag!
But the real heart-to-heart connection was already there. It was not only represented in the flag; it had become part of the process itself.