getting started - a proposal of sorts

This photo was taken for my profile on the Elsewhere website. I couldn't resist this mountain of dolls hidden away in the attic.  

Yesterday I met with the Elsewhere curators to discuss my project proposal... it goes a little something like this...

The dolls are lonely. They’ve been in the dark far too long. I’ve come to rescue them from the toynado (see below) detritus and give their dismembered limbs a reason to live, a way to live. After all, this is a “living” museum, isn’t it? It’s time to bring the fleshy fake mini humans back into our living space. To turn their peachy plastic skin into an organ of interaction and discovery.

In addition to doll limbs, I’d also like to incorporate the truncated arms and legs of the mannequins I’ve seen laying around. Like dolls, mannequins are human stand-ins, but rather than objects of play, they are instruments of display.  

I plan to build an immersive and interactive space/structure out of the doll and mannequin parts that will function as both playground and work station. Who says work and play can’t co-exist? The parts will come together to comprise a fleshy mass, an ambiguous super doll-thing that responds to human touch. Hinges and pulley systems will facilitate motion and interactions, causing parts to wiggle and rise when poked and pulled in just the right places. Seating and a desk-like surface will be integrated into into the design, to encourage playful banter and brainstorming sessions for collaborators of all sorts.

Flesh is the human body’s largest, toughest, most sensitive organ. By it and through it we experience and respond to our surroundings. Using the inanimate doll flesh, I will create a new kind of organ: one that fosters play and the gestation of big wild and crazy ideas, in which nothing is too absurd. Organ and incubator.

For my work, this project is an attempt to integrate my immersive 3-D environments and my 2-D collages. Seeing the doll/mannequin parts as collage elements, I plan to construct a space that might resemble one of my collages, come to life. The viewer is an actor in the real-life collage/construction, pulling, poking, and prodding at odd (yet compelling) orifices and protrusions, evocative of human form. 

Kim Holleman - Toynado - 2007 - 8' x 5' x 10'