Casting the Dollhouse
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Date
2014-01-09
Authors
Wong, April
Journal Title
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Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
The Dollhouse is a model of domestic life; its material framework, spatiality, passage, function and aesthetic describe the architectural construction of a domestic ideal. Yet, the dollhouse is not simply an architectural model; it is made specifically to house a doll. While architecture structures the movement of the body, social constructions mold the body as well as its image. Thus, both architectural and social frameworks come together simultaneously to form the cast of the dollhouse, for which the doll is molded to fit.
But now she is trapped inside the dollhouse - her fortress and asylum - she is held captive in its frames and assessed on how well she fits; if she has been trained to use all the props, if she can suit the wardrobe, and play the pre-scripted roles. She must embody the doll in order to find a place of belonging. Thus the domestic ideal is cast in exclusion of the real woman inside the doll, whose presence becomes a screaming absence found in the impressions left from the cast.
I have assembled the casts of four Dollhouses and the Dolls made to fit inside them. Fabricated by an interplay of pairing and comparison, a formation between image and text, it is the meeting of two surfaces, of inside and outside, and a woman in between.
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Casting the Dollhouse