As the exhibition This is Not a Doll's House continues in our North Miami space, we wanted to give the oppurtunity to shed some light on the finer details you might have missed out on with each artist's work. Their inspirations, the analysis of the original Ibsen play, and their reactions to an ever-changing modern society norm all have major influences on their art, and that gives us great reasoning to prod their minds for the real reasons behind the Doll's House.
This is the first part of many as we give questions to each of the artists participating in the show, and each week we'll have another set of artists to see their responses to what our interviewer asked them.
Please tell us how you think the theme of the exhibition reflects the current position of women in our society?
Christine Lee Tyler: I love the title of this show because it reflects the barriers domesticity limited women and how we broke through those constraints.
Laetitia Adam-Rabel: Women’s rights are currently being toyed with, after decades in which we had been making progress in securing a place at the proverbial table. This exhibition is timely in exposing our feelings that our rights are not for the patriarchy to play with.
Michela Martello: I think the theme creates an interesting point of view that expands the perception of women in our society.
Louise Cadoux: There is a huge effort to keep women down in our society and remain dolls. As long as we don't have good, affordable child care we can not compete on equal terms. Women are still supposed to look like dolls and not be too loud or opinionated.
Melanie Brewster: Despite how many decades have passed since the initial performance of "A Doll's House" -- women in society today are still struggling with a number of the same expectations, particularly around motherhood and caregiving. There is still unyielding pressure to become a mother, but also the belief that we can "have it all" with successful careers in addition to parenting. When women choose to shirk this 'duty' to have children, they are seen as immature or selfish.
In today’s world, what role do you think dolls play? Has that role changed at all in your lifetime?
CLT: I remember the majority of dolls having blonde hair and blue eyed dolls when I was growing up. Dolls are now created to empower girls of all races, backgrounds and cultures.
LAR: As per my 5-year-old daughter, what she likes the most about playing with her dolls is being able to throw them on the floor but also being able to play dress up with them and combing their hair. In short, the dolls can be roughed up, like the one doll that we played too “hard” with, but they can also take us to the creative place of playing with clothes and fashion. These are similar ways in which I played with my dolls. I would add that I used to like to officiate doll weddings, and play house with them as another way to exert control over my world. I would conclude that the roles have not changed much.
MM: It really depends, somewhere it has changed...
MM: It really depends, somewhere it has changed...
LC: When I was a girl Barbie could be a babysitter or an air stewardess. Now she can be a doctor or an astronaut. Of course you can also use your own imagination, I used to pretend that my Barbie was in the Mafia.
MB: Dolls used to be training tools for motherhood (i.e., baby dolls) or femininity (i.e., barbie). I'm not totally sure that's changed, but it is nice to see the rise of more gender neutral toys like Pikachu.
We have your individual statements, but now that you have seen images of the installed exhibition, what purpose do you think all of the dolls serve?
CLT: I love that the theme based show created a collaborative discourse on how dolls can be used to make powerful statements.
LAR: I believe the dolls, in some aspects, embody truths about the artists that made them. I do not want to speak for all the artists, but looking at the diversity of the dolls, makes me feel like I can see through to the artists themselves. I think the dolls are a means of protest, of actualization, and of assertion.
MM: To express individual history, creativity, they also serve as little totemic talismans.
LC: It shows that the imagination and interpretation of what a doll is is limitless. Given freedom no one can put a doll in a box.
MB: The dolls offer new perspectives on care, gender, and femininity.
If dolls are given to girls and boys to help them identify themselves, and their future selves, how does your doll shape that?
CLT: It gives them a non binary toy as part of an education in identifying who they are as individuals.
LAR: My dolls are not play things. And that is the exact message they were meant to convey. Women and girls are not play things. Hands off our reproductive parts, and rights, and hands off our bodies and our issues. You can look, but you can’t touch!
MM: Interesting question, I want to say a total new shape that embody animal and human realms.
LC: My dolls try to show that the interior is much more interesting and important than the exterior.
MB: My Wolfmother Plushy offers a topsy turvy view of femininity and caregiving. Rather than using her teats to feed babies, there are silver chains that hang from them. Can a figure still nurture if she does not, quite literally, offer her own body as a comfort object?
Do you have a particular memory of any time you’ve spent with dolls/dollhouses that you carry with you?
CLT: Yes, I remember playing with dolls often. When I was very young I pretended to be a mother. As I got a little older I played with Barbie dolls and my dolls always held a professional job.
LAR: I remember chopping off my Barbies’ hair, on several occasions. These were times when I wouldn’t have been allowed to cut my own hair. So as a way to have control over my own body, I cut my dolls’ hair. And until this day, I do not understand society’s fascination with long, or certain types of hair as being “feminine” or more “beautiful”. As an adult, I cut my own hair as a method of protesting these stereotypes. It’s a bit of a social experiment for me, but that’s the topic for a future exhibition.
MM: Barbie, I play a lot with Barbies when I was little, but mostly because she came from America, and I was dreaming to escape Italy to come to America.
LC: I remember using an upside down wagon and pretending that my dolls were in prison.
MB: Somewhat ironically, my primary "doll" was a pound puppy stuffed animal named Emily. I was never drawn to babydolls or real babies and I'm still staunchly childfree today at nearly 40.
Can you elaborate on the connection between your piece and the theme of this year’s show? What do you hope folks take away from it?
CLT: I interpret the theme of this show “This is Not A Dollhouse” to address barriers women are still trying to break through. In my work, I narrate the constraints of conformity by creating stiff, repetitive doll patterns that eventually morphs into flora. By transforming the dolls into depictions of nature, I portray the breaking away of such restrictions.
LAR: My pieces answer directly to the title of the exhibition, "This Is Not A Doll’s House” and are inspired by the play Doll’s House in as much as they are allegorical figures of women, that defy stereotypes of what a woman “should” be.
MM: Super Power!
LC: I hope that the show will touch people in different ways. It's serious, beautiful, funny, and sad all at the same time.
MB: In A Doll's House, Nora makes the radical choice to leave her family for a new, unencumbered life. People were so jarred by this decision they stormed out of theaters whenever it was performed. My hope is that considering this narrative in a contemporary landscape of reproductive freedom and choice will open viewers up to Nora's complexity. My piece shows a humanoid version of the famous capitoline wolf of Rome, but she has chosen a different path than raising Remus and Romulus--should she be scorned or celebrated? Perhaps women should dare to change history.
