Rainbow Portacorn (fully portable), 2013

Artists Statement (From 2013)

Rainbow Portacorn (fully portable)

 

 

A portable wedding arch, the Rainbow Portacorn can be pulled apart and set up in seconds, in any same sex marriage location imaginable. Outdoors or indoors, secular or religious, it’s ready to go when the Australian government is ready to make the dream of marriage equality a reality for thousands of gay and lesbian couples and their families.

 

An optimistic protest, the Rainbow Portacorn is deceptively cheerful and inviting, its camp demeanor belies a coded message. It is a celebration of defiant protest, like a Mardi Gras float, it’s a theatrical back drop to a struggle for human rights and equality.  Reminiscent of a coat of arms, the message is born on the back of a powerful mythical being. The unicorn is a magical fantasy creature that embodies the union of effeminate beauty and masculine power. Its equally camp, black swan friend, Cygnus Atratus, surrounds it. The male black swan, a traditional representation of the improbable, boasts a twenty percent same sex, lifetime pairing rate. The top of the central rainbow, a universal symbol of gay, lesbian & queer pride and diversity, proudly displays a marriage equality equal sign.

 

Those who are within or close to the gay and lesbian community can easily understand the coded message of the Rainbow Portacorn. Others may only see only pretty unicorns, swans, a rainbow or something white and ‘wedding-like’. It doesn’t matter if the message is understood. It exists despite community awareness.  Just as gay and lesbian people exist, sometimes hidden, sometimes obvious, but always present. Yet our ‘defacto’ relationships and ‘partnerships’ are unable to claim the declaration that best describes them.

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