Ragged & Tagged & Flagged - Caroline Chisholm, Domesticity and the Victorian Goldfields by Dr Flossie Peitsch is a textile-based exhibition/installation.
In this exhibition there is a series of white household pillowcases and embellished with simple quilting designs. Attached to them are many paper parcel tags inscribed with the names or positions of unheralded women – living and dead – deemed significant by the tag's authors. It gives them the appearance of the tails of kites. In addition there are artistic facsimiles of hand-crafted, hooked rag floor-rugs and tapestries bearing slogans or abstract patterns in traditional suffragette/feminist colours.
Visitors will be invited to add their own inscribed tags to those already part of the installation as a fun and effective memorial to ordinary women, doing ordinary tasks during the period of the Victorian goldfields. There will be a free community workshop on Sunday 19 July, where visitors are invited to make a mini finger-hooked rug with Dr Flossie Pietsch. Please check the Central Goldfields Art Gallery website for more details.
Dr Flossie Peitsch is currently undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy through Federation University, Ballarat and this exhibition forms part of her thesis on Caroline Chisholm.