baby jane
This piece is inspired by my quest to live an authentic existence and acknowledge my places of privilege. In particular, I wish to acknowledge that I live on stolen land and that I know very little about the people and history of this place I call home.
I ran through many variations of this piece in my mind before deciding on the final elements. I had lots of questions and wanted to ensure I respectfully represented the experience of Indigenous people. Can I authentically tell this piece of history? Is it my right to speak of this? What is my goal? Where do I find a brown doll? Should I use more than one body? Is a bag of body parts more effective? Should she spin or is a light somewhere on the body enough? Do I put her in a bag?
Once I decided to move forward with this piece my biggest challenge was finding a doll, I traveled east and west looking for the right doll – one that is light enough to balance on the motor and that I can cut into and easily put back together. Halfway through my search I realized that finding a brown doll with all these characteristics was going to be impossible because up until then I had not even seen anything close to what I was looking for, white or brown. When I finally found her at Value Village the next challenge was getting her to spin and light up at the same time. Cutting into her to place the LED light on her foot was not too bad but getting her to spin...that was the biggest challenge! Partway into cutting and taping and connecting wires I realized that as she was spinning the wires from the LED were getting tangled around the motor…so she can only spin a couple of times. I tried various things to fix this but realized that my skills are limited and I accept that I have reached the extent of my knowledge. With more time I would have asked for help so she can spin and light up endlessly.
I am pleased with the outcome. It is a strong piece with a valuable message that challenges our concept of History, War and Indigeneity and Colonization.