Let’s play dress up!, 2017
The art project was created for one of my fine arts electives this semester: The Art of Response. The rationale behind the class was to study and recover ways that art and history can engage, provoke, or disrupt a community.
What is documented here is my final project entitled Let’s play dress up! which is an interactive art piece that questioned and challenged the gazes that the women in my university were subjected to-- a subject that means a lot to me as a feminist. The project was made up of two phases. The first phase prompted anyone in the university to participate through the call to action “Let’s Play Dress Up!: What should Dolly wear today?”. The responses to this call to “clothe” the Dolly templates (42 in total which I had laid out and printed on 4x8 feet of tarpaulin) were done via black and red markers I left at the bottom of the board.
The second phase, after three days of having people scribbling on the board and getting familiar with Dolly, would be for the artist to “awaken” her to the world she has become a part of. By doing so, Dolly returns her gaze to the world which has implicated itself upon her. This was done through covering the call to action with the narrative shown in the Methodology of Phase 2 and by placing stickers of eyes (the artist’s own) and hearts (a stock image) onto the Dollies which have been drawn on.
I had left, on the last day of Let’s play dress up!, an illustration board where people could write their thoughts on the project. Responses varied from “People really do love memes.” to expressing shock at the audacity of other participants in fetishizing Dolly.
Much appreciation goes to my family & friends who helped me set up and keep the project in motion, but thanks goes especially to my professors Sir Paolo Tiausas and Dr. Hidde Van der Wall (art dads) for continuously guiding and pushing myself and the whole class to pursue art projects that go beyond four white walls.
