As part of a ritualised practice, and process informed by vital materialism, I go hunting for unloved objects that want me. Sometimes they whimper and sometimes they scream, but they all want something: they all have desires.

 

My intervention is maternal: I bring these objects home and listen to what they want, then step away, granting their autonomy. I am obedient to their whims.   

 

A seminal doll in this installation first suggested its longing and I yielded: removing its head to satisfy its desire for further existence. It beckoned for more and I responded to the insatiable hunger through manipulation, violence and translation.

 

Presented in this installation are the yearnings of five dolls.  The forgotten objects assemble in a ritual-like formation, surrounding a vortex of words and symbols.   Scrawled in Dorset, an ancient dialect with a childlike capacity for play beyond artificiality and rationale, they long to transcend identity, sexuality, gender and subjugation.  On the binary of innocence and tragedy, this mandala remembers darker feminine histories.  Language is perceived to be dangerous, warranting the use of Sigils to conceal.  They coo and taunt, their desires coalesce, revelling in ferocious desire: an urge to do something inadvisable.