Historical information

Raquel Ormella is an artist working at the intersections of art and activism, with a diverse practice that includes textiles, video, installation, drawings, and zines. Ormella explores how contemporary art can prompt viewers to reflect on their own beliefs and values regarding political consciousness and social action.

Her art practice is also grounded in exploring the nature of the relationship between humans and the natural environment.

This artwork, Workers Blues #2, reimagines the Australian National Flag, constructing a rough-hewn approximation of it from blue workers shirts. Flags are one of the most powerful uses of fabric; Ormella is echoing the flag design to explore tensions between aspirational nationhood and the personal effect of this has on individuals, marginalised social groups and the environment.

Ormella’s choice of material – blue cotton workers shirts - also references gendered associations with cloth, with masculine nationalism symbolised by the workers shirts, including in the mining industry. The work is an example of the symbolic power of cloth as a marker of identity, including gender and class.