RACHAELROMERO

Google + square white large Facebook square white large Facebook square white small Google + red small Twitter square blue small

ENSLAVED in a Magdalene Laundry  

ENSLAVED in a Magdalene Laundry, entry to exhibit ENSLAVED web Final Evite FULL Mangle dates times

Blood Sisters in the Convent of the Good Shepherd, Magdalene Laundry by Rachael Romero,  28x22" mixed media drawing on paper.

 

Lillie and I did this because we felt we had become sisters in horror. Lillie had been taken from her mother to a mission, then The Pines.

 

She didn't remember where she was from. I didn't want to be from what I remembered.

                           --RR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Sisters by RRomero First Night, The Pines, by Rachael Romero 13. Brain-washing, MagdaleneLaundry,Pines,SA(c)Rac The Mangle Magdalene Laundry by Rachael Romero Packing Room Magdalene Laundry by Rachael Romero Washing and Ironing PINES Laundry by Rachael Romer NO MOVEMENT below the waist by RachaelRomero Convent of Good Shepherd Cross Magdalene Laundry Stigmata by Rachael Romero Frederica's escape 2Magdalene Laundry by Rachael R What MRS LETHEBY did for us by Rachael Romero 1. C disinfectant bath by Rachael Romero St of Cross the Fall in Quadrangle by Rachael Romero detail one 72 Anima solo by Rachael Romero72

 

All work on this site

(c) 2011, 2012, 2014

All Rights reserved.

Crown ML lg Enslaved by Rachael Romero THe way the Catholic Church viewed us by Rachael R

  This work depicts the experience of the Australian-born, New York artist Rachael Romero, who at 14, in 1967, was sequestered, without charge and without legal trial, in the Convent of the Good Shepherd.  ‘The Pines’, on Marion Road, North Plympton, SA, was one of nine commercial ‘Magdalene’ laundries across Australia in the 20th century.  Romero recalls, “In this Dickensian throwback, our names were taken. Our identity was taken. We were shocked into an enforced silence and ‘trained’ to carry out dangerous drudgery. Offered no remuneration for such labour we were told to offer it up for the saving of souls in the ‘next life’ and therefore beautify our pitiful selves”.

After all that

 

I am a woman

 

not a victim

 

Does that surprise you?

 

Please don’t misunderstand me

 

The branding of that cement quadrangle

 

Liberated me from obligation

 

 

By cauterizing my childhood

 

it favored my freedom

 

 

I survived that last judgement

 

conveniently caste aside,

 

an artist, liberated by exile

 

 

a woman of grit

 

cast out

 

 

stubborn as a weed

 

 

It took a half century

 

to emerge from the

 

crack in that concrete quadrangle

 

I've faltered, changed course, but

 

kept growing

 

Even as I mature and die

 

I throw out seeds

 

                       -Rachael Romero.

 

 

Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, the Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, South Australia University, Adelaide, South Australia. September 5-October 3,  2014  

long enslaved wall

Romero recallis her experience in an Australian Magdalene Laundry with Michael Secton for abc 7:30 Report

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-05/memories-of-the-magdalene-laundry/5724206

ENSLAVED FinalTITLE 17 wide 72

 

 

 

“What cannot be said above all must not be silenced but written.”  --Jacques Derrida

 

                   The point of departure for my activist work comes from my own life experience. Always choosing media that can be widely disseminated, I burrow into my own corrosive secrets. Telling  them from the inside out--Rachael Romero

 

 

 

 

Rachael Romero installation7 enslaved kpcg hawke sa uni copy Ex-P.M. of Ireland at ENSLAVED exhibit Enslaved install 7 IMG_1107

Copyright Rachael Romero

Enslaved 5 LIFE STUDIES installation3 Magdalene Installation 3 by Rachael Romero

Aftermath of Trauma by Rachael Romero

Aftermath First wave dr c Rachael Romero Blood sisters with Pines Stigmata (c) Rachael Rome Washing and Ironing PINES Laundry by Rachael Romer