Marriage: Love and Law exhibition catalogue - Flipbook - Page 28
DIEU ET MON DROIT
ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID …
RAQUEL ORMELLA
Dieu et mon Droit, implying ‘for God and King’, are the words on the ribbon
at the base of the British crest as it appears on the marriage proclamation
of Governor Macquarie. In this document, marriage is presented as duty and
a path to respectability for female convicts, free women and Ladies. While such
proclamations might have benefited some women, marriage never-the-less
was a form of social control, whose logic saw women as a resource to build the
stability, and therefore the economic success of the Colony and British Empire.
For this reason, I have connected both ‘Convicts’ and ‘Ladies’ with the broad
arrow, the brand for objects that are the property of the government.
The words, Dieu et mon Droit, also appear in Acts of Parliament. This piece
uses some of the material qualities of these documents, such as the gross grain
ribbon binding, and brings them into conversation with the language of two
quilt traditions of the 1800s. The first being the Celtic wedding knot,
often a central motif in Irish pieced medallion style and whole cloth quilts,
and applique—broderie perse—and English paper piecing. I specifically
reference the medallion piecing and embroidered dedication of the Rajah quilt
(1841), the only known, or surviving quilt, made by convicts during the
transportation voyage. While I cannot imagine myself into attitudes and
feelings of the women of the 1800s, I can connect with their being
via shared hand work traditions, while undoing and rearranging these
tentative connections.
Fast forwarding to the present, Always the Bridesmaid … uses second-hand
bridesmaids’ dresses from the ‘60s through to now. Bound and clamped
together, these dresses cascade in a camp simulation of the Rainbow Flag (5).
While the changes to the Marriage Act 1961 that allowed same-sex marriage
are an important social equality, I still wonder at all the restrictions,
social constructs and expectations that remain around the ceremony
and legal marriage contract. May we continue to undo these too.
20
20 Raquel Ormella
Dieu et mon Droit
(For God and King) (detail)
Cotton, linen, wool, acrylic,
silk/cotton embroidery
thread, ribbon
2019
Commissioned by
NSW State Archives
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