Exhibition supporters: I Publication supporter: HOPE YOU This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program and received development assistance from NETS Victoria’s Exhibitions Development Fund, supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. GET THIS: RAQUEL ORMELLA

National Exhibitions Touring Support (NETS) Victoria is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and through the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. NETS Victoria also receives Front and back cover: significant in-kind support from the National Gallery I hope you get this 2018 of Victoria. silk and cotton embroidery thread on linen 8 x 10 cm SAM is proudly provided by Greater Shepparton Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane City Council and receives operational funding from © the artist Creative Victoria, the State Government funding Photo: David Paterson body for the Arts. I hope you get this: Raquel Ormella TOURING SCHEDULE CONTENTS A NETS Victoria and Shepparton Art Museum touring exhibition Curators: Rebecca Coates and Anna Briers

Catalogue design: Ainger Creative Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) 4 Foreword Catalogue copyediting and proofreading: Clare Williamson Shepparton, Victoria Printer: Waratah Group 26 May – 12 August 2018 Edition: 1000 5 Mayor’s welcome ISBN: 978-0-9802977-7-5 Horsham Regional Art Gallery Catalogue co-published by Horsham, Victoria 6 A robust vulnerability National Exhibitions Touring Support Victoria 13 October – 9 December 2018 Kyla McFarlane c/- National Gallery of Victoria, Australia Federation Square Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery 10 I hope: Instagram and the political stitch Melbourne Vic 3000 Launceston, Tasmania Rebecca Coates netsvictoria.org.au 19 January – 24 March 2019 and Drill Hall Gallery 19 I’m worried this will become a memory: art Shepparton Art Museum Australian National University, Canberra and activism in the work of Raquel Ormella 70 Welsford Street 12 April – 9 June 2019 Shepparton Vic 3630 Reuben Keehan sheppartonartmuseum.com.au Noosa Regional Gallery Text © 2018 the authors and Shepparton Art Museum. The views Noosa, Queensland 23 Images and opinions expressed in this catalogue are those of the authors. 22 June – 28 July 2019 No material, whether written or photographic, may be reproduced 68 Artist biography without the permission of the artist, authors and Shepparton Art Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest Museum. Every effort has been made to ensure that any text Emu Plains, New South Wales 73 List of works and images in this publication have been reproduced with the 30 November 2019 – 2 February 2020 permission of the artist or the appropriate authorities, wherever it is possible. Images © 2018 the artist. Details correct at time of printing. 74 Acknowledgements NETS Victoria and Shepparton Art Museum acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land which now comprises Greater Shepparton and the Wurundjeri and the Boon Wurrung of the Kulin Nation. As the exhibition travels across Country, we pay respect to each of the traditional custodians of these lands and to their tribal Elders; we celebrate their continuing culture and we acknowledge the memory of their ancestors. I hope you get this: RAQUEL ORMELLA

shared knowledge and supported one another to We are delighted to present I hope you get this: FOREWORD create I hope you get this. It is often what happens MAYOR’S WELCOME Raquel Ormella as a NETS Victoria and Shepparton Mardi Nowak behind the gallery walls and in the lead-up that builds Kim O’Keeffe Art Museum touring exhibition. The impressive strength to a tour. Collaboration can at times be program for the travelling exhibition has been Director, NETS Victoria Mayor, Greater Shepparton uncomfortable and there always needs to be give made possible through the work of NETS Victoria, and take. However, by sharing and combining our specifically through the support of its Exhibition knowledge, we can produce great things and take Development Fund. Our regional partners include away many learnings. Horsham Regional Art Gallery (Vic), Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery (Tas), Drill Hall Gallery, Collaborative Strength The production of this exhibition has involved Greater Shepparton City Council is delighted to Australian National University (ACT) Noosa Regional many, from locations scattered throughout Australia. present Raquel Ormella’s first major survey exhibition, I hope you get this conjures up memories of postcards Gallery (Qld) and Penrith Regional Gallery & The With an artist based in Canberra, exhibition I hope you get this: Raquel Ormella, at Shepparton sent from faraway places. The title of this wonderful Lewers Bequest (NSW). I hope you get this has management based in Melbourne and a curatorial Art Museum (SAM). exhibition by Raquel Ormella is also a little bit tongue- been further assisted by the Australian Government’s team working from regional Victoria, the project’s in-cheek. The phrase plays on notions around the This exhibition brings together a selection of new Visions of Australia program. success depends on collaboration and communication. relationship between artist and viewer, particularly and recent works by one of Australia’s leading SAM Director Rebecca Coates has written about We acknowledge the support and work of former in regard to contemporary art. In the past, regional contemporary artists. It includes a wide variety Raquel Ormella’s use of Instagram within her practice. Director of NETS Victoria Georgia Cribb and former towns and galleries were seen as cultural wastelands of media and draws in particular on Ormella’s In a way, this was one of the communication tools Curator Melissa Keys. In particular we thank current and exciting and fresh art was believed to only come experimental textile works, exploring key themes through which the whole team was able to be Director Mardi Nowak, who has been key to securing out of the cities. Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) that the artist has consistently developed in her kept up to date on how the works were progressing. funding for this project, and Exhibitions Coordinator proves this to be wrong through its unrelenting work: social and environmental activism, human and It was as though we were visiting Ormella’s studio Ellen Wignell, who has been a pleasure to work with commitment to audience engagement and its animal relationships, nationalism and national identity. via our phones, an approach I’m sure we will continue and a diligent collaborator. challenging of its communities’ ideas about art. throughout the tour and beyond. Arts and culture play a vital role in our community. This exhibition continues the work that SAM is NETS Victoria is thrilled to partner with SAM to They bring people together, forging strong community I hope you get this was developed through NETS known for through a particular collection strength: present I hope you get this, which presents a major connections, and offer different ways to view the world Victoria’s 2016 Exhibition Development Fund (EDF), work by leading Australian female artists since the body of work by leading Australian artist Raquel in which we live. In this exhibition, key works invite which allowed an initial idea from SAM’s curatorial 1970s. The exhibition has been curated by Rebecca Ormella. The team at SAM have a strong history our audiences to get involved, become inspired and team to grow into a national tour. The EDF offers Coates and Anna Briers, SAM Director and Curator of creating innovative exhibitions, programs and engage through an exhibition and related education curators the opportunity to take the time to develop respectively, and offers a timely appraisal of one of educational offerings that take art and ideas beyond and public program activities that are developed thought-provoking and risk-taking exhibitions. Australia’s major female artists. Thanks to all the the gallery walls. This tour builds upon the wonderful around art that is topical and timely. This annual program, supported by Creative Victoria, SAM staff who have worked on this exhibition. work they have done and shares their approach is a unique offering by NETS Victoria and has proven The exhibition is accompanied by this richly with the wider arts network. And finally, we thank Raquel Ormella for her to produce a series of fascinating and challenging illustrated publication with newly commissioned enthusiasm and generosity in the development I am a fan of SAM. This small team is doing big exhibitions. We are so pleased to be able to work essays, and we particularly thank writers Reuben and presentation of this major exhibition and tour. things, and this exhibition and program are no with the dedicated SAM team in order to share their Keehan, Kyla McFarlane and Rebecca Coates for exception. Behind the scenes and in the lead-up to vision with audiences in Shepparton and beyond. their insightful contributions. Thanks also to the We look forward to sharing this exhibition with this tour, NETS Victoria and SAM have collaborated, Gordon Darling Foundation for their support our audiences. of the exhibition publication.

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The conceptual driver of these works is the space Wealth for toil #1 2014, is a big, sparkly show pony: a neon yellow, orange and blue barometer of the A ROBUST VULNERABILITY Ormella constructs above the hanging stars. She gives an Australian flag drenched in ribbons and gold, with mining boom. This workforce gained near-mythical Kyla McFarlane us the boundary of the flag’s edges but the space a hint of baggy-green-cap myrtle green. It asserts status for its sheer numbers and much-discussed within becomes a void. This radical emptying out of the ‘GOLDEN PROMISES’ of Australian sport’s green remuneration. Toilers for the wealth, they were a highly symbolic space offers up an existential blank and gold, and the attendant tally of medals won modern-day gold rushers, yet their conditions were slate. The Australian flag, a blue ensign recognising over decades of sporting prowess, an achievement often stressful and the schedule of flying in and British settlement and Federation through the Union tightly bound to the nation’s psyche. The gloss of out often demanding on workers and their families. Jack and Commonwealth star, privileges a colonial such promises has been recently corroded by the The greatest wealth continues to reside at the top, In Raquel Ormella’s Return to the beginning 2013, narrative that has led to devastation and dispossession fall from grace of members of the Australian cricket with the mining magnates. And now that the mining an array of blue and white stars cascades down the for its Indigenous people. The Southern Cross, a team following a ball-tampering incident in South boom is considered over, it is a matter of debate as wall. This little constellation of falling stars is held geographical marker and emblem of the Eureka Africa. Disgraced team captain Steve Smith broke to what the next steps will, or should, be for Australia. together by blue ladders that hang from the bottom flag flown by defiant gold miners at the Eureka down during a press conference when asked what of a thinly edged rectangular space. Looking closely, At Milani Gallery, Brisbane, in 2016, Ormella Stockade in 1854, has been co-opted into the ugly he would say to the children who look up to him, the in the top left corner of the border surrounding exhibited a body of work made from unpicked, nationalism asserted by Cronulla rioters and Australia followers of his dream. Wealth for toil #1 seems a this hollowed-out space, we see blue, then white, pre-worn hi-vis clothing of the kind worn by these Day partiers.1 What if we dismantled the existing perfect flag to wave in this time of increasing lack of then red – traces of a Union Jack. We know it well, workers. The works’ presence in Queensland, a state constructs and imagined a nation built by means other faith in that which the nation once held dear. Despite and the particular shade of blue that surrounds it. whose natural resources implicate it in any mining than these? What if we abandoned the idea of nation its hubristic assertions, it performs a beautiful entropy, Then, in the white stars below, we might recognise boom and bust, lent them a particularly elegiac air. altogether? Whose dreams might be realised in this with the lower half of the work unravelling at the the seven-pointed Commonwealth star, and the five The glow-in-the-dark, op-art geography of Golden imaginative, utopic space of possibility? seams. Its promises, and the foundations upon which stars of the Southern Cross, upended. soil #3 2016 pleasingly divides the country into neat they are constructed, break apart thread by thread. To make these works, Ormella has performed myriad slices, but also has a leaky border on its eastern This delicate structure reconfigures a familiar small acts of rebellion, using the red-hot end of a This disintegrating cheerleader also gives us pause side. Workers blues #1 2016, urgently shouts ‘FLY IN readymade – a nylon Australian flag. Through careful stick of incense to burn the flags’ nylon fabric apart. to reflect upon other nation-forming histories. Its title FLY OUT’ in reflective tape. These words sit atop a labour, Ormella has excised the stars from their usual The artist describes this as akin to a teenager burning is gleaned from a line in the national anthem that nation carved out in blue cotton drill and neon, and positions, scattering them out into a parallel universe cigarette holes in a curtain.2 Performed on the flag, directly connects the nation’s riches to the bounties are bounded at the bottom by an unevenly cut edge. where they now exist amongst other stars. Extracted however, the burning becomes iconoclastic. Despite gained from the land: ‘we’ve golden soil and wealth The bright, celebratory quality that these works have from their place in the flag, they are released not only attempts to amend flag desecration laws, burning for toil’. The line speaks to the mid 19th-century at first glance diminishes quickly into a melancholic from their geographical specificity, but also their years the Australian flag is not a federal offence.3 Even so, gold rush, to pastoral opportunity and rewards for reverie on the trials of manual labour and a country of symbolic service to the nation. Ormella’s undoing and reconfiguring of the flag using hard work. But exactly who is enabled by this heady divided. A deeper melancholy pervades Wealth for A smaller amended flag sits to the left. Here, a web this method lend an air of protest to its poetry, as opportunity for prosperity? toil #5 2017–18, a companion piece to Wealth for toil of letters jostled into the space surrounding the Union she prods and pokes at that which is deemed stable, #1. Made from hessian and incorporating ground- In recent years, the ‘hi-vis’ clothing of the FIFO Jack spells out ‘RETURN TO THE BEGINNING’. In the symbolic and true. up ash, this work utters a phrase that has, since (fly-in, fly-out) worker in airports around the same year that Ormella created this work, she also Biblical times, been understood as an expression country gained symbolic traction. The highly visible paired her scattered stars with the declaration of a of repentance, sadness and regret. presence of hi-vis was compounded by its critical ‘NEW CONSTELLATION’. In this second work, small mass in frequent flyer lounges and airport queues: holes incised into each letter sparkle against the dark blue, bringing more stars to this reimagined night sky.

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As the national anthem so quaintly puts it, Australia of which for those detained there have been painfully as individuals – might be unravelling, positions us on is also a continent ‘girt by sea’, its border defined by documented as a shameful episode in our history. shaky ground. Ormella’s attention to the frayed edges its coastal edge. Yet recent negotiations between East The following year, Ormella made This dream, a of our national psyche, its places of shame, ambiguity Timor and Australia regarding the maritime border at work made from Australian, Nauruan and Papua New and failure, suggests that this is exactly where we the Timor Gap and its attendant gas fields, and the Guinean flags, each of which was burnt into a cage- should be standing. And from here, we might make history of Papua New Guinea as a dependent territory like web of lines. These were laid together so that we new and abiding futures. until 1975, reveal more complex notions of where might read the three phrases the artist spelt out in the

Australia’s territory begins and ends. Australia has fabric left behind: ‘THIS DREAM ... ON THE OTHER also historically laid sovereign claim to its Antarctic SIDE ... OF THE WORLD’. In doing so, Ormella has 1 The Eureka Stockade at Eureka, Victoria, (now in Ballarat) was a Territory, an area that is nearly 80 per cent of the brought forth an aching humanity that bleeds across rebellion against what local gold miners considered to be unfair size of Australia.4 The prospect of Australia mining each of the nation states represented here. In contrast licensing laws. Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton’s 2017 this continent has also been periodically raised. to the colonial conquests of Settler economies, these film We don’t need a map examines Australia’s relationship to the Southern Cross from multiple perspectives. In Settler economies #1 and #2 2017, constructed words connect to a multitude of subjects who have 2 The artist in conversation with the author, 30 March 2018. from workwear, Ormella brings the matter of lost the power of self-determination. As the flags The author warmly thanks Raquel Ormella for her generous Antarctica to our attention. The first of these works overlap in the centre of the work, the text becomes discussion of this body of work in the development of this essay. records the names of countries that have a stake difficult to read, its voice painfully obscured. 3 Recent bills seeking amendments to legally protect the Australian in Antarctica, along with the names of bases and flag from being burned have been proposed by then deputy prime ice shelves. The second takes the form of a larger minister John Anderson (2003) and the National Party’s George map that positions the vast Antarctic continent in Christensen (2016) following incidents of flag burning as protest. its geographical relation to its neighbours – Africa, The creation of Ormella’s works from flags and 4 The Antarctic Treaty System brought together nations with a stake in the continent and set aside conflicts over sovereignty Australia, New Zealand and South America. workwear involves a great deal of labour. In this claims, asserting the status quo: ‘No acts or activities taking This dense, layered cacophony is tightly held within respect, the works have a dutiful air about them. place while the present Treaty is in force shall constitute a a 180 x 180 cm space. Familiar names come to the A job well done. Time spent wisely. This commitment basis for asserting, supporting or denying a claim to territorial fore, depending on one’s relationship to language and to the hand, and the work that it can do, is something sovereignty in Antarctica or create any rights of sovereignty in geography. All of this wryly brings forth the uniquely Antarctica. No new claim, or enlargement of an existing claim to admire and delight in. Yet we have seen that there to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica shall be asserted while complex, historically contested arrangements between is also a process of unravelling here, an undoing the present Treaty is in force.’ antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/ nations on this southern continent, while also revealing that is intrinsically tied to the doing: the burning of people-in-antarctica/who-owns-antarctica; accessed 2 April 2018. the legacy of colonial histories through the naming of myriad holes in flags, the unpicking of clothes, the territories – a distinctly masculine endeavour. unthreading that follows the threading, the rending Such matters have limited traction in the national apart that accompanies the piecing together. It is psyche, however, when compared to the ongoing this abiding tension – the conceptual and physical politicisation of border protection in relation to ramifications of the artist’s process of simultaneous asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat. In making and unmaking – that gives these works great 2012, the Gillard government reopened offshore complexity and force. There is an emotional register processing centres for asylum seekers on Nauru and to this, one where robustness sits in tandem with Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, the ramifications vulnerability. Recognising where we – as a nation,

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Instagram seems to be designed for those who work NGV triennial 2018, is perhaps presented precisely Ormella’s Instagram feed features fabric stashes, I HOPE: INSTAGRAM AND with images. A pithy hashtag or smart one-liner is to encourage such a reaction. And while artist and embroidery threads, unfinished objects, Pantone usually all that’s needed to complete the story a activist Ai Weiwei’s most recent giant inflatable, Law colour swatches and the slow art of lost crafts, as THE POLITICAL STITCH picture tells. Numerous artists and arts professionals of the journey 2017, was billed as the show stopper well as a small number of artworks by others she have leapt onto the medium. Many have merged particularly likes. It could be seen as part of a massive Rebecca Coates of Mami Kataoka’s Biennale of Sydney 2018, millions personal and public personae, with varying degrees had already seen images of the artwork in its previous global return to the handmade, where workshops, of privacy or veracity. Raquel Ormella and other artist presentation at the Prague National Gallery in 2017, practical demonstrations and other offerings of colleagues in Australia and overseas have all made the circulated widely around the world on social media. TAFEs, universities, Adult Education providers and medium their own. Nell has over 7K followers, Glenn many others sell out as rapidly as they are offered.3 Ormella uses Instagram less to create a global Barkley 10K and Ben Quilty over 32K, while artistic It’s the online update to the ‘stitch’n’bitch’ sessions As Raquel Ormella started to prepare for her major brand or identity-driven following, than to create director of the Serpentine Galleries, London, and uber of old – even when these were advertised online, survey show at Shepparton Art Museum, small and connect with more localised groups. An avid curator of our age, Hans Ulrich Obrist, has 215K. They they still required people to catch up in person for intimate embroideries began to appear on the birdwatcher, or ‘twitcher’ as they are affectionately don’t rival Beyoncé at 113M, but that’s another story. a regular session of gossip and keeping hands active. artist’s social media platform of preference, Instagram. known, her connection with local ornithology groups It makes the world seem smaller, our community more Ormella’s version has all of the same community These images of new embroideries and skeins of in cities and regions wherever she travels enables her global and our idiosyncratic hobbies more rational as sentiment and connectedness, but like many other coloured threads for embroidery palettes were to tread lightly and at a slower pace. The self-portrait we link with a subset of like-minded others sharing activities in our online world, it can occur at our own accompanied by a series of biographical commentaries she has selected for her Instagram profile reveals this interests in a particular visual meme, the experience leisure and location, as part of our ‘downtime’, and and hashtags about hoarding and unfinished objects activity, though she herself is partially obscured by a carefully curated, not by human hands but by an without the hassle of getting out of our slippers. (or UFO’s as they are called by some people I know great big pair of binoculars. ever more subtle software algorithm that reflects our with similar habits). I was in Shepparton, Ormella in Ormella’s sentiments clearly resonate with her desires back to us. For the artist and art professional, Ormella has long been interested in how communities New South Wales; but Instagram shared the intimate growing number of followers. Alongside her own while the approach may look casual, the successful work, actively participating in grassroots organisations. and the professional with instantaneous visuals. small embroideries she posts stashes of hoarded and site is as carefully curated as any other big-ticket Often, there is a social or political agenda, with a For an artist working in the traditional materials of leftover fabrics and finds from church fetes, car boot show. As much, if not more, rests on the follow, with strongly personal connection, though Ormella has in fabric and thread, how did 21st-century Instagram sales and opportunity shops, usually embroidery thread an audience that is immediate and global in its reach. the past been cautious about these works only being modify and mediate the artist’s voice? and textiles, but also extending to the crocheted read through this prism.1 Wild rivers: Cairns, Brisbane, There are, of course, pitfalls for those not born coathanger, at 50c a throw. The St John’s church fete Finding a social media platform that suits is one of Sydney 2008, four whiteboards covered in permanent with a screen or device in their hands. At a recent was clearly a particularly rewarding day. Visits to her today’s First World challenges. Each of us, in both marker drawings, and their associated works on paper, international conference, one of my curator parents’ house, or the move to a new house and our professional and personal lives, has a favoured as well as banner works included in this exhibition, friends described the current state of curating as studio, reveal forgotten treasures unearthed from online platform. Many in the policy and political refer to political activism and the desire to find a #itscomplicated. So too can be social media: one the attic. Ormella muses on her habits with hashtags worlds have a penchant for Twitter, the preferred personal voice within it.2 The text in many of Ormella’s well-known arts professional, though widely followed, – #tryingtostophoarding #notreallyreallysucceeding medium of current US President #trump #fakenews. banner works alludes to biographical aspects of the is regularly criticised by artists for uploading images #theonewhodieswiththemostfabricwins It seems to lend itself to the narky comment, the artist’s own life as well as national events and political of artworks badly captured or with wonky edges. #hoardersunite #thestash. policy rant and occasional links to more serious utterances. The very title of this exhibition, I hope you There’s a growth in Instagrammable artwork, which analysis. I missed the first Facebook wave, and now get this, reveals Ormella’s hope that her own artist’s One attic find was a doll’s house made by her father can appear so much better on the screen than in the leave that to younger and older generations, who voice is heard in the exhibition and provokes her and the box of #dollshousefurniture that went with flesh. A social media frenzy surrounded many of the message in their sleep and share holiday pics and audience to action. it. Ormella notes, ‘This time last year I let that go artworks in the National Gallery of Victoria’s epic family idylls with envious others.

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into the world. And thanks to Insta it found a new Ormella has long used fabrics and other textiles home … It is now with Nicole Barak’s niece being to create large sculptural paintings and wall works. loved and that is [where] the furniture is going too For Ormella, whether stitched by hand or machine, …1970s.’ Ormella confesses on a visit to Shepparton her materials have the patina of their original purpose, that the furniture had been harder to part with, a such as the dark blue of KingGee workwear favoured memento as it is of 1970s design and pure plastic by blue-collar workers, including her own father, or the colours.4 Subsequent posts of the furniture reveal high visibility reflective fabrics that the mining boom Ormella’s feminism, the influence of both parents turned into airport-wear. There’s always two sides to on the development of her political views, and a a story, however, and Ormella’s artwork is infused with wry humour. She writes, ‘Of course every girl in the the environmental and social effects of this economic #70s needed several kitchens – even when raised activity: from the landscape damage of mining to by a #feministmother’. The fridge was bright green the social dislocation and family stress of a ‘fly-in, – with a clarity of colour tone echoed by many of the fly-out’ generation of workers on 20-day rosters. greens Ormella has subsequently used in her fabric Ormella’s choice to work in fabrics and thread, works. Pictures display the furniture doors opening, two traditionally female materials, has some roots and the wear and tear of much love and use over the in Rozsika Parker’s influential book The subversive years. ‘You need a sink to be chained to afterall [sic] stitch, 1984.6 For Ormella, it remains a seminal text – amazing that the teatowel is still stapled to the rack and she cites it as playing a significant role in her after 40 years … All the furniture is different scales rethinking of the gendered nature of art-making, and come to think of it I really remember the furniture materialities and labour. Parker notes that embroidery and the house but not the dolls … or the smallest only became a purely female activity in the early ones I had would have been giants in the house modern world. Both men and women worked in #oldplasticcanbesoabject.’ the guilds and workshops of the Middle Ages. A post on International Women’s Day 2018 features And needlework has always had class-based a plastic iron in the same red, green and white plastic overtones: whether for goods produced for the as other doll’s house furniture, photographed from rich, given the cost of the materials and hours various perspectives. Ormella writes that it was a of labour – however cheap; handwork for those Christmas gift from Santa when she was about four who could afford the leisure time; or skills re- or five. ‘I am sure I am not the only one whose parents appropriated to create banners of solidarity were contradictory and complicated. Giving thanks early in the labour movement. to them today for raising me a feminist.’ And to ‘all Republished in 2010, The subversive stitch now those art mothers who helped [me] think through / includes the work of leading contemporary artists feminism’s complex history’.5 The final image is of the Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin. In Parker’s updated underside of the iron, where she draws attention to introduction, she notes that if Bourgeois had made ‘check out the scar-face surface. This was a well used work in these media before 1985, extensive chapters toy.’ The art/life/politics thing – #itscomplicated.

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would have been allocated to her art. According and a celebration of all things CRAFT, contemporary to Parker, Bourgeois, who frequently employed art has evolved. The disparity between male and embroidery and fabric in her work, perhaps did most female wages in the arts may still be vast; so too to restore fabric and stitching ‘to their place within the number of men with major survey shows and with “high art”’.7 Bourgeois’ work in fabric refers back artworks acquired by leading art institutions.9 But on to her childhood, her own family, female sexuality, a positive note, the division between art and craft is the unconscious, psychoanalysis and the body. Her breaking down. Artists now working in these materials parents ran an embroidery restoration business, and extend the potential of traditional craft media, such she famously never threw out a single piece of fabric as ceramics, tapestry, embroidery or even knitting, to or clothing. Ormella’s photographs of the 1970s plastic become part of a contemporary dialogue. Like others, furniture from her doll’s house could easily be read as a Ormella’s interest in these materials is in large part rethinking of Bourgeois’ famous Femme maison series. located within the ‘art world’ within which she works, which contrasts to the ‘craft world’ of amateur makers Tracey Emin has used embroidery and fabric and the everyday. It is a similar appeal of making and differently, to expose the gap between imposed materiality that we are seeing play out in the ceramics femininity and lived female sexuality. A product world across both spheres – that of the passionate of 1990s Britain, her autobiographical sharing of creative and of the art world professional. Neither is her dirty sheets, sexual proclivities and sleeping better, but they are different. And each informs the partners was embroidered onto the inside of a other. Textiles and clay offer artists a sense of the camping tent. It took fabric, textiles, embroidery potential for social inclusion, a delight in the material, and tapestry into an altogether different an ability to harness the exotic and the gaudy within contemporary realm. a conceptual frame, and a sheer revelry in the notion A spate of recent exhibitions document this trend: that anything goes. from the inclusion of Sheila Hicks and Lee Ming Wei’s The series of small embroideries, All these small Mending project in recent editions of the Biennale of intensities 2017–18, that Ormella has presented for Sydney and the sheer number of textile-based works the first time at SAM are all deeply personal, as their by both men and women in the 2017 Venice Biennale titles intimate: I hope you get this, Feminist politics, to institutional shows in 2018 such as Surface/depth: All these small intensities, Contemporary embroidery, the decorative after Miriam Schapiro at New York’s Drawing with thread, Grunge colour attitude ethics. Museum of Arts and Design (MAD).8 This exhibition has provided a timely rethink of the legacy and Ormella divides them into three distinct periods. influence of great second-wave feminists such as The first relates to her childhood, when Ormella Schapiro, Judy Chicago and others on a younger was keen on ‘craft projects’, picking up skills generation of artists. either by osmosis or from her mother. The second reflects her time at art school in the 1990s, when Since The subversive stitch was first published in she used tapestry and embroidery stitching as a 1984, amidst the blare of second-wave feminism

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form of anti-painting. And the third corresponds of the Venice Biennale, were so influential in locating an unfinished project? Ormella notes that only tiny time … cursed by the text … not sure if the indecision to the 2000s when, as she notes, ‘I became a bit Australian artists firmly within an internationally amounts of yellow and navy was left. will read on the final piece.’ This work is made from of a hoarder’.10 Nothing from the first period of relevant postcolonial, or postmodern, debate. all new threads, breaking with the old palette. Her post of FOUND PALETTE, another work relating childhood craft activities has seen the light of day, Ormella describes the third phase of her embroidery to this period, has the hashtags #violets #bluebells, The recent series of embroideries presented in this save the photographs of her doll’s house furniture making and collecting as one of acquisition and as social media and online community language makes exhibition draw together many of these threads. from this period, now shared on Instagram. hoarding. The 2000s were a peak period for collecting its way into the actual embroideries. The picture These works reflect on the histories of Ormella’s GRUNGE COLOUR ATTITUDE ETHICS is made from ‘stuff for art’, for ‘material inspiration’ and ‘for shows a hand with needle and threads from the St life, her materials and the very process of making. coloured threads remaining from the art school 1990s, heart break’. She presents on Instagram a recent John’s church fete hoard, all framed by a bus window. Enjoying the process of stitching as relaxation as and uses what Ormella describes as a ‘dark and drab’ embroidery made from threads acquired from this much as for its artistic content, Ormella frequently COLOUR GLUTTON is another work made from palette of browns, greys and some blue – the colour time. Presented as two images, the one above reads seems unwilling to let the works finish. And Instagram thread purchased during the #peakacquisition of her father’s work clothes. Alternating with these ‘PEAK LOSS’, the one below, ‘PEAK ACQUISITION’. provides a public window into the history of making phase of Ormella’s life. The threads used in this work intimate-scaled objects presented front and verso The embroidery is a series of squares with diagonal that was once the exclusive preserve of visitors to were sold as a group, and Ormella thought the palette are photographs of original Coats & Clark embroidery stripes in alternate directions: green and purple, a private studio. In Ormella’s Instagram feed, the so unusual that she wanted to work with it. She notes skeins bought during this art school period. yellow and orange, pink and green, pink and orange, artist’s hand is often present, as is her material. that there are ‘2 tones of 2 different chromatic greens; red and pink, with text over the top in light and dark Skeins of thread are held between thumb and Ormella does recall that the works for which she 2 tones of pink that are slightly different chroma; a blue in contrasting diagonal stripes. forefinger in front of the work in progress, which bought the thread in the 1990s were a series of dark purple; black and white’. In rethinking this found rests on the artist’s knee – often clothed in a similar small paintings about her migration story and her Each palette carries its own history. IRONIC PINK hoard, she also ‘added some extra colour and used colour or complementary pattern. This is colour relationship with her parents, which also included a GRUNGE ATTITUDE is done in shades of cream, cream instead of white. Only took 12 years.’ swatching on steroids. The device of inclusion of stitched element. In an Instagram post, she describes pink and brown. It feels like a bastard child of There’s a completely different history woven the artist’s hand is one Ormella has previously used, her father’s story as ‘Barcelona, Germany, Peru, muted pastels from the 1990s, overlaid with a later into ENDLESS POTENTIAL, made from kimono and locates the artist in the making, as well as in Australia. War – crisis – economic redistribution – colour palette that is a little more Pantone, a little threads acquired while Ormella was in Tokyo in our mediation of the subject. Now, however, this work’. Commenting on this post online, art historian more tasteful. The collision may reflect how people 2010. Its aesthetic and materiality are emphasised labour is often depicted in context: on holiday, on and academic Chris McAuliffe notes, ‘muted tones, started giving Ormella their own precious things, by unfinished threads left dangling in clusters from public transport while travelling, or simply in front muted men, hanging around in clusters on worksites once they knew she was reviewing and reworking the completed embroidery. The palette for this of a landscape scene beyond. It subverts the idea or at the pub, doing their silent type thing’. In their her own collections and hoards. A vintage collection embroidery is largely white, with some faint pink of embroidery and tapestry worked somewhat own way, these works provide another chapter in of threads, complete with original cardboard box text and blue markings coming through from mindlessly in the evening to keep idle hands busy. Australia’s visual story of workers and the economy, labelled Wonderwear Hosiery, attracts the hashtags underneath, not dissimilar to the exquisite kimono And yet, there is something enjoyable about this alongside John Brack’s Collins St, 5p.m. 1955, with its #foundpalette and #lettingthingsgo. So precious fabric the thread was originally conceived to weave. process of labour. And somehow, we seem to have faceless workers and last-drinks rush. One of Ormella’s was its connection to the box’s original owner that ONE INDECISION AFTER ANOTHER reflects come full circle. The artist now mines her own tutors at the University of Western Sydney at this time the owner’s granddaughter held on to it for 20 years the difficulties of the process of making these craftwork archive of treasures, selective memories was Australian artist Narelle Jubelin. Jubelin’s intensive before handing it over to Ormella. Ormella notes, embroideries and an insight into the artist’s process. and psychological compulsions, creating a new form research process, her sourcing of objects with complex ‘DMC wrappers – a lot of 744. A pale yellow, of which Ormella notes that it was ‘Started on the summer of language that she shares via an online platform histories and reinterpretation of these histories, often there was only a small amount left.’ Ormella wonders holidays, unpicked several times, which is not what as her works evolve. It’s an archly egalitarian gesture through petit point, in works such as Trade delivers how the collection was formed – did the grandmother I would normally do … taking out the blue grey this that intermingles art world and craft fanatics. people 1989–90, first shown in the Aperto section have a favourite colour and combination? Was there

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1 See, for example, Lizzie Muller, ‘An interview with Raquel Ormella’, The first banners in the I’m worried this will become in Raquel Ormella: she went that way, exh cat, ed Reuben Keehan, I’M WORRIED THIS WILL a slogan series were produced in Sydney in 1999, and Artspace Visual Arts Centre, Sydney, 2010, p 32. their double-faced design seems appropriate to the 2 See Reuben Keehan’s essay for a discussion of these works, BECOME A MEMORY: contradictions of that time and place. The city had p. 20–21. not yet become an orgy of real estate speculation 3 See, for example, Alexander Langlands, Craeft: how traditional crafts are about more than just making, Faber and Faber, London, ART AND ACTIVISM IN THE and petit bourgeois aspiration – not completely, 2017, where the current meaning and revival of craft seems to anyway – and it was possible to occupy spaces within have little to do with the act of making. WORK OF RAQUEL ORMELLA the urban geography to articulate alternative visions 4 The artist notes that most has now been given away. Email with for the community. But John Howard’s re-election the the artist, 11 April 2018. Reuben Keehan previous year had cemented his conservative social 5 Instagram quotes have been referenced as written by the artist, agenda and its attendant nationalist symbolism in the spelling and grammar intact to the original post. public imagination, and a sense of frustration inflected 6 Rozsika Parker, The subversive stitch: embroidery and the progressive conversations about society, culture and making of the feminine, IB Tauris, London, New York, 2010. the environment. ‘I’m worried I’m not political enough’ Ormella also cites political theorist Jane Bennett’s book Vibrant Raquel Ormella’s best known bodies of work are matter: a political ecology of things, 2010, as central to her work, – with its two pronouns situating self as subject and in which the author argues that a ‘vital materiality’ runs through arguably those that most immediately engage the object, and its matter-of-fact phrasing aligning with a and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. language and aesthetics of activism. Emblematic of history of conceptual instructional pieces – articulates 7 Parker, introduction, p xviii. Ormella’s critical consideration of the role of the artist a personal uncertainty that can be located in what in relation to broader social questions are the two- 8 See Glenn Barkley, ‘Open house’, in Open house: 3rd Tamworth was a contestable but decidedly implacable leaning textile triennial 2017, exh cat, Tamworth Regional Gallery, 2017; sided banners of I’m worried this will become a slogan of Australia’s social imaginary to the political right. Alina Cohen, ‘How Miriam Schapiro’s feminist work transcended 1999–2009 and the artist’s trilogy of permanent marker the line between art and craft’, Artsy, 29 March 2018, artsy.net/ on whiteboard installations (2005–08), which developed More than that, though, Ormella’s banners speak for article/artsy-editorial-miriam-schapiros-feminist-work-transcended- themselves, as works of art. They are too absurd to be art-craft; accessed 1 April 2018. out of long-term engagement with Wilderness Society campaigns. Both series have found prominent mistaken for actual political paraphernalia. Their hand- 9 See, for example, The Countess Report, 2016, thecountessreport. cut, hand-sewn lettering is cleanly done, but by no com.au; accessed 2 April 2018. exhibition platforms and substantial critical discussion. They record political gestures and long-term projects means professional in appearance. The way the texts 10 The artist in conversation with the author, 20 March 2018. relevant to the time of their production – exemplary crowd to the right, squeezing into the spaces left individual actions alongside the apparently personal clear by the texts on the opposite sides – so that the doubts of the former and committed collective work thread doesn’t overlap, basically – is clever, funny and in the case of the latter. What does it mean, then, at the same time commonsensical. The banners sag for these works to persist into the present, and by affectingly, a potential distraction that nonetheless extension, the future, when their reference points are amplifies the pathos of the doubts they express as so clearly situated in the past? And what might the to sufficient radicalism or political engagement. passage of time imply for the artist’s current work? Their materiality emphasises their status as objects of art, and their misgivings can therefore be read as offered on their own behalf, and on behalf of

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art in general. What can art really do when it comes potential investigation, discussion and reflection. Rivers Act, created in 2005 by the Queensland Labor Australia’s resource extraction industries, Ormella to confronting the awesome problems of racialised They maintain a presence, are given an afterlife, or administration to protect the flow of water in Cape has over the last decade developed a body of dispossession, social marginalisation and irreparable at least remain available for the curious as the flip York rivers from intensive agricultural and industrial documentation, multiples, installations and videos environmental exploitation? side of art’s uncertainties about itself. exploitation, and defended by the Wilderness Society concerning relationships between humans and animals, in the face of business and community debates and in particular the impact of human behaviour on The banners’ flip sides, meanwhile, present lofty The march of technology, and of time that distances that touched on complex issues of Indigenous birdlife. Originally developed as an ‘experimental instances of personal commitment gleaned from us from events, is also apparent in the unusual medium sovereignty, was repealed by Campbell Newman’s conference paper’, City without crows was first staged real-world events. But interestingly, in examples like of Wild rivers: Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney 2008. Printable LNP government in 2014. Ormella’s permanent marker for an activist audience in Yogyakarta. The work ‘Xanana Gusmao’s son has a tattoo of his father’s whiteboards, a once-enviable fixture of seminar rooms, panoramas of campaign offices, with their focus on the created encounters with the sonic spaces created by face on his chest’ and ‘Paul Kelleher lopped the head white-collar workplaces and community workshops, placement of environmental imagery, are records of a birds in the context of the absence of crows in that off the Margaret Thatcher statue because he didn’t have been outmoded by short-throw projectors, political process that, no matter how complicated its city due to their popularity as pets; the trade in birds want it to enter the Houses of Parliament without touchscreen technology and real-time sharing. actuality or long-sighted its vision, would at a certain rates only second to habitat destruction as a driver of the mark of the people’, the actions described occupy Indeed, they were already headed for obsolescence point in time play out, disperse and reconfigure amid extinction in Indonesia. As the work has developed, an aesthetic field shared by art, where social meaning when Ormella first selected them as the ground for shifting stakes and terrains. Even the cluttered spaces, performed again in Sydney in 2017 as part of The – whether relating to fidelity or public representation two marker-pen drawings in Poster reduction 2005–08, with their jumbles of equipment interspersed with National,1 a survey of recent Australian practice, and – is invested in symbols and material forms. There is which depicted the Wilderness Society’s Hobart offices slogans such as ‘LAST CHANCE’ and ‘SAVE CAPE subsequently configured as an installation, Ormella has potential for broader significance here, even if it is and campaign materials as the organisation defended YORK’ are a thing of the past, as the Wilderness sought to find points of connection between Australia only ever signalled; there is hope for art. Some of itself against legal action from a logging company. Society has since adopted a neutral ‘corporate’ and Indonesia in the process of extinction, across these snippets stray into the past tense, contrasting 130 Davey Street 2004–05 presented a more multi- image and attendant mode of workplace organisation. a border that, as an accompanying text drawing with what Ormella describes as the ‘continually layered investigation of the same spaces and their Thermal-print whiteboards would undoubtedly be makes clear, ‘birds don’t acknowledge’. present moment’ of the doubts filling out the margins carefully determined aesthetic productions on an an archaic nuisance in such offices. The space of art of the works’ opposite sides; others feel cut from a array of conventional whiteboards, but the electronic Art, Ormella recently noted in an academic occupied by Ormella’s whiteboards is precisely what larger narrative. Certainly it was once possible to read versions returned for Wild rivers: Cairns, Brisbane, presentation of City without crows, creates spaces enables reflection of the aesthetic manifestations of these texts within their immediate contexts, namely Sydney with an interactive element; audiences could for conversation by diverse publics, enabling the such concerted, collective political work, whether the East Timorese independence referendum and print out and take home thermal paper versions of production of complex, multi-layered readings. as rigorously workshopped campaign materials or crisis of 1999 and Kelleher’s 2002 work of popular Ormella’s permanent marker drawings of Wilderness It also operates at cognitive and temporal registers outward reflections of professional standards. performance vandalism, events that are now part Society offices in the titular cities. that are distinct from the noise of media debate. of a dim collective memory. Even their origins seem It is tempting to interpret obsolescence as a metaphor It may lack the immediacy and force of political The appearance of this outmoded technology in distant, the artist noting that the phrases started for extinction. And it is perhaps all too easy for a language and the elevated stakes of radicalism, Ormella’s work should not be read as an appeal to out as moments of ‘personal intensity’ encountered consideration of two decades of Ormella’s art-making but it is not without value to an ethical, activist curiosity or even simple nostalgia. As with I’m worried while poring over the daily paper, a form of press to burden the artist’s newest productions with the approach to the world, as nuances flatten and this will become a slogan, there is a poetic relationship consumption that has itself been rendered rare by existential piquancy that some of her better-known discourses simplify in an increasingly demanding between subject and medium. At a decade’s remove, the 24-hour news cycle, social media and smartphone works have accumulated over time. Yet this is the mediascape. The unfolding of time around Ormella’s due to the passing of a key Wilderness Society alerts. But these moments were situated in the past crux of her artist’s book, performance and installation works, especially those that most closely approach member and cheaper airfares that enable greater from the outset, and their persistence within objects project City without crows 2016–18. Alongside lush activism, offers possibilities for relativising doubt, mobility, the Cairns office no longer exists. The Wild of art preserves these exemplary actions as topics for material explorations of the rhetoric and imagery of for preserving transitory moments of personal

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and collective intensity, and for deepening already rich fields of meaning and conjecture. Like its predecessors, City without crows raises observations and opportunities for contact in the time we have left, which is not without its urgencies, but which remains time in which research and debate can take place, and in which redundancies can occur while things of real value are preserved, not out of nostalgia for things past, but for times and places to come.

1 The National 2017: new Australian art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Carriageworks and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 30 March – 16 July 2017. City without crows was performed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on 31 May, 3 June and 4 June 2017, with dramaturgy by Nikki Heywood.

Wild rivers: Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney (detail) 2008 4 whiteboards, thermal paper, Texta marker pens dimensions variable Monash University Collection. Purchased 2008 © the artist (Only exhibited at Shepparton Art Museum)

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Above: Opposite: The Australian November 13 2003 p.5 (detail) 2004 Sydney Morning Herald January 14 2004 p.5 2004 pen on paper pen on paper 58 x 39.7 cm 58 x 39.7 cm Private collection Private collection © the artist © the artist Photo: Christian Capurro Photo: Christian Capurro

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City without crows (details) 2018 digital prints, three-channel video, found objects dimensions variable Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist

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I’m worried this will become a slogan (Xanana Gusmao) 1999–2009 I’m worried this will become a slogan (Paul Kelleher) 1999–2009 double-sided banner, sewn wool and felt double-sided banner, sewn wool and felt 128 x 202 cm 128 x 202 cm Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist © the artist

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This dream 2013 Poetic possibility #1 2012 nylon reworked flag, cotton, metal 150 x 210 cm 200 x 240 cm Collection Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Campbelltown City Council Collection Rudy Komon Memorial Fund 2013 © the artist © the artist

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Return to the beginning 2013 nylon 250 x 375 cm Collection of The University of Queensland. Purchased 2014 © the artist (Only exhibited at Shepparton Art Museum)

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Golden soil #3 2016 New constellation #1 2013 acrylic, hi-vis fabric and poly-cotton reworked flag, cotton, metal 186 x 186 cm 250 x 348 cm Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist © the artist Photo: David Paterson

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Wealth for toil #1 2014 nylon, acrylic and glitter on hessian 325 x 260 cm QUT Art Collection. Purchased 2017 © the artist

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Wealth for toil #5 2017–18 charcoal, acrylic paint, hessian 220 x 270 cm Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist Photo: David Paterson

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Workers blues #1 2016 Settler economies #1 2017 work uniforms, hi-vis fabric, cotton hi-vis ribbon, poly-cotton, cotton work trousers and shirts 140 x 140 cm 180 x 180 cm Sunshine Coast Art Collection Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist © the artist

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Settler economies #2 2017 hi-vis ribbon, poly-cotton, cotton work trousers and shirts 300 x 261 cm Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist Photo: David Paterson

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Pages 46 – 67: All these small intensities (details) 2017–18 silk and cotton embroidery thread on linen and Perspex dimensions variable Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane © the artist Photo: David Paterson

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ARTIST BIOGRAPHY AWARDS/GRANTS/PRIZES 2017 Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery, Qld 2016 One Year Studio Artist, Artspace, Sydney 2012 Fisher’s Ghost Art Award, Campbelltown Arts Born 1969 Cronulla, Sutherland, Sydney Centre, NSW 2009 New Work Grant, Australia Council for the Arts 2007 PhD scholarship, College of Arts & Social EDUCATION Sciences, Australian National University, ACT Awarded in 2015 PhD, Visual Arts, Australian National New Work Grant, artsACT University, ACT New Work Grant, Australia Council for the Arts 2003–05 Masters of Fine Arts, University 2006 New Social Commentaries, Warrnambool of Western Sydney, Nepean, NSW Regional Art Gallery, Vic 1997 Non-award studies, Akademie Capital Arts Patrons Organisation, Singapore der Bilden Kunst, Vienna, Austria Airlines travelling grant 1992–96 Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class 2003 Australian Postgraduate research scholarship Hons), University of Western and UWS Research Bonus Sydney, Nepean, NSW 2000 Western Sydney Artists Fund, NSW Ministry for the Arts 1999 Australia Council Studio Residency, Barcelona, Spain 1996 Dyason Bequest, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 1992 William Fletcher Trust Prize, NSW

Raquel Ormella in her ANCA studio, Canberra, April 2018 Photo: Andy Mullens

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SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2010 Art and cities, Aichi Triennale, Nagoya, Japan 2005 International geographic, Artists Space, Change, Monash University Museum of New York, United States of America 2019 I hope you get this: Raquel Ormella 2017 MCA collection: word, Museum of Art, Melbourne C’Town bling, Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Tas Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney In the balance: art for a changing world, Art is a social space, Blacktown Arts Centre, NSW Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National Limitless horizon: vertical perspective, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Who’s afraid of the avant-garde?, Performance University, ACT Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Zen to Kawaii: the Japanese effect, QUT Space, Sydney Noosa Regional Gallery, Qld Art, Brisbane Art Museum, Brisbane Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers 1917: The Great Strike, Carriageworks, Sydney 2004 Cycle paths will abound in utopia, Australian Tokyo story, Tokyo Wonder Site, Shibuya, Bequest, NSW Material politics, Institute of Modern Art, Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne Tokyo, Japan Brisbane City views, Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane 2018 I hope you get this: Raquel Ormella The dust never settles, University of 2009 Making it new: focus on contemporary Shepparton Art Museum, Vic 2003 Poetic justice, 8th Biennale of Istanbul, Turkey Australian art, Museum of Contemporary Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Vic Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane The difference is the gap, ARTSPACE, Art, Sydney The National 2017: new Australian art, Art Auckland, New Zealand 2017 Southern economies, ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE Problem solving: express yourself, Gallery of New South Wales / Carriageworks / Feedback: art, social consciousness and Festival, LAB-14, University of Melbourne Uplands Gallery, Melbourne Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney resistance, Monash University Museum 2016 Conversations in black & white, Future 2016 Dissenting voices, Art Gallery of Western 2008 Revolutions – forms that turn, 16th Biennale of of Art, Melbourne feminist archive, Cross Art Projects, Sydney Australia, Perth Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Anita and beyond, Penrith Regional Gallery Contemporary Australia: optimism, Queensland 2012 Feeders, Canberra Contemporary Art & The Lewers Bequest, NSW 2015 Artist making movement: 2015 Asian art biennial, Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane Space, ACT National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung Home sweet home, National Gallery of The ecologies project, Monash University Australia, Canberra, and national tour 2011 130 Davey Street & Walking through clear-fells, More love hours: contemporary artists and Museum of Art, Melbourne Boofheads and scrubbers revenge, Penrith Contemporary Art Tasmania, Hobart craft, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University Better places, Perth Institute of Contemporary of Melbourne Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, NSW 2009 She went that way, Artspace, Sydney Arts, Perth See you at the barricades, Art Gallery of Australian, Casula Powerhouse Regional Arts 2002 Cidades, 25th São Paulo Biennale, Brazil 2007 It’s a big experiment basically, International New South Wales, Sydney Centre, Liverpool, NSW Bittersweet, Art Gallery of New South Art Space Kellerberrin Australia (IASKA), 21, Casula Powerhouse Regional Arts Wales, Sydney 2007 Territorial, Canberra Contemporary Art Kellerberrin, WA Centre, NSW Space, ACT, 24Hr Art Darwin, NT 2001 Temporary fixtures, Artspace, Sydney 2002 Living in other people’s houses, Gertrude 2014 Basil Sellers Art Prize, Ian Potter Museum Sunburn, K3, Hamburg, Germany 2006 If you leave me can I come too?, Australian Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne of Art, University of Melbourne Centre for Photography, Sydney 2000 Drawing show, Mori Gallery, Sydney 2001 Living in other people’s houses, The Lounge, 2013 California-Pacific triennial, Orange County Transversa, Museum of Contemporary Sydney!Vienna!, Akademie der Bilden Casula Powerhouse Regional Arts Centre, NSW Museum of Art, Los Angeles, United States Art, Santiago, Chile Kunst, Vienna of America Multiplicity, Museum of Contemporary 1999 Australian perspecta 1999: living here now 2012 Pavilions project – Sydney, 9th Shanghai Art, Sydney – art and politics, Art Gallery of New South Biennale, China Yours, mine and ours: 50 years of ABC TV, Wales, Sydney Social networking, Queensland Art Gallery | Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane Bequest, NSW

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1998 Injection, Performance Space, Sydney COLLECTIONS New constellation #1 2013 Homemade (with Lucas Ihlien), SOUTH, Sydney LIST OF WORKS reworked flag, cotton, metal National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 250 x 348 cm 1997 Parking, Casula Powerhouse Regional National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Taiwan Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Arts Centre, Liverpool, NSW Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, (Touring venues only) Brisbane Return to the beginning 2013 The Australian November 13 2003 p.5 2004 Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth nylon pen on paper 250 x 375 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 58 x 39.7 cm Collection of The University of Queensland Private collection Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart Purchased 2014 (Only exhibited at Shepparton Art Museum) University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane Sydney Morning Herald January 14 2004 p.5 2004 pen on paper This dream 2013 Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney 58 x 39.7 cm nylon Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne Private collection 150 x 210 cm Collection Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney The University of Wollongong, NSW Wild rivers: Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney 2008 4 whiteboards, thermal paper, Texta marker pens Rudy Komon Memorial Fund 2013 Casula Powerhouse Regional Arts Centre, dimensions variable Liverpool, NSW Wealth for toil #1 2014 Monash University Collection. Purchased 2008 nylon, acrylic and glitter on hessian Warrnambool Regional Art Gallery, Vic (Only exhibited at Shepparton Art Museum) 325 x 260 cm Artbank, Australia I’m worried this will become a slogan QUT Art Collection. Purchased 2017 (Xanana Gusmao) 1999–2009 Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart Golden soil #3 2016 double-sided banner, sewn wool and felt acrylic, hi-vis fabric and poly-cotton Sir James and Lady Cruthers Collection, Perth 128 x 202 cm 186 x 186 cm Michael Buxton Collection, Melbourne Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Private collections in Australia and overseas I’m worried this will become a slogan (Paul Kelleher) Workers blues #1 2016 1999–2009 work uniforms, hi-vis fabric, cotton double-sided banner, sewn wool and felt 140 x 140 cm Raquel Ormella is represented 128 x 202 cm Sunshine Coast Art Collection by Milani Gallery, Brisbane Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Settler economies #1 2017 Poetic possibility #1 2012 hi-vis ribbon, poly-cotton, cotton work trousers reworked flag, cotton, metal and shirts 200 x 240 cm 180 x 180 cm Campbelltown City Council Collection Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane

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Settler economies #2 2017 FROM THE ARTIST RAQUEL ORMELLA The production of City without crows was supported hi-vis ribbon, poly-cotton, cotton work trousers ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to everyone at SAM and NETS Victoria, by a new work grant from the Australia Council for and shirts especially Rebecca Coates, Anna Briers, Ellen Wignell the Arts. The preliminary research was carried out 300 x 261 cm and Mardi Nowak. Your support for my practice in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, with support from Gertrude Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane and this exhibition has been a dream, I feel so lucky Contemporary as part of their Independence Project. Bird hunter 2004–18 and blessed. Thank you to Reuben Keehan and Kyla Many thanks to Jacqueline Doughty, Kristi Monfries I hope you get this: Raquel Ormella was developed books, ephemera, artist multiples, videos, zines and McFarlane for their insightful essays and longstanding and Grace Samboh for facilitating a rich and rewarding with the assistance of NETS Victoria’s Exhibition ceramics from the Shepparton Art Museum Collection interest in my work. research time. City without crows was also presented dimensions variable Development Fund, supported by Creative Victoria. as a performance in The National, curated by Anneke Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane The tour received funding from the Australian Many thanks to the hands that have helped me in Jaspers at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in (Only exhibited at Shepparton Art Museum) Government’s Visions of Australia program. the studio to unpick, stitch, burn, iron and machine 2017. Many thanks to production manager, Sarah The accompanying catalogue was generously these fabric works: Jasmine (Jazz) Stevens, studio Rodigari and to dramaturg, Nikki Hayward for their All these small intensities 2017–18 supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation. assistant on and off 2002–16, you rock!; Sharon intellect and support in developing the project. silk and cotton embroidery thread on linen (Shags) Gallagher, Abigayle Tett, Catherine Newton, and Perspex NETS Victoria and Shepparton Art Museum would Tiffany Cole, Ruby Green, Drew Moynihan and Jacqui The production of the Workers blues and Golden soil dimensions variable like to thank Raquel Ormella for her enthusiasm Helma. And thank you especially to my family of series were completed while a One Year Artist Studio Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane and commitment to the project. assistants: Jo-Anne Boag, Daniel Ormella, Audrey Resident at Artspace, Sydney. Wealth for toil #5 2017–18 We thank Josh Milani, Milani Gallery, Brisbane, for his Ormella and Alison Ormella. charcoal, acrylic paint, hessian support of the project; the birdwatchers of Shepparton; Many thanks to Josh Milani, the best cheerleader- Dr Raquel Ormella is a lecturer at the School of Art & 220 x 270 cm and to all those who follow Raquel so assiduously on Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane dealer ever; my colleagues at the School of Art & Design, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian social media. We would also like to thank the following Design, ANU, especially Ruth Waller, Peter Alwast National University lending institutions and their staff: Art Gallery of New City without crows 2018 and Emma Beer; to Fernando Do Campo, Andrew digital prints, three-channel video, found objects South Wales, Sydney; Caloundra Regional Gallery, Qld; MacQualter and Chris McAuliffe for the studio dimensions variable Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW; Monash University conversations that have gotten me out of holes; Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Museum of Art, Melbourne; QUT Art Museum, and Haico Koopmans for always being right. Brisbane; University of Queensland Art Museum, I hope you get this 2018 The production of Wild rivers: Cairns, Brisbane, silk and cotton embroidery thread on linen Brisbane; and private collectors who have assisted Sydney was supported by new work grants from CATALOGUE WRITERS 8 x 10 cm with the project. Thanks to writers Reuben Keehan and Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane Kyla McFarlane for their contributing texts that expand artsACT and the Australia Council for the Arts. Rebecca Coates on Raquel’s work so eloquently, and to Chris McAuliffe, It was completed with assistance from Peter ‘PJ’ Director, Shepparton Art Museum Professor of Art (Practice-led research), School of Art Jackson and Tye McBride. The image of the Wenlock Reuben Keehan & Design, The Australian National University, for his River is used with kind permission of Kerry Trapnell. Curator, Queensland Art Gallery | ongoing support and opening remarks. Many thanks I thank the Wilderness Society, and particularly Gallery of Modern Art to the external teams that we work with at IAS and Lyndon Schneiders and Felicity Wade, for their TED Fine Art, and the conservators and framers who Kyla McFarlane trust and generous support of my research. assist us behind the scenes. Curator of Academic Programs (Research), the Ian Potter Museum of Art

74 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements 75