Earlier this month, downtown Nanaimo residents may have spotted something out of place – something large and reminiscent of a bygone era.
And if they had, the object might have roused some forgotten memories of childhood – as any 16-foot-long doll lying abandoned in dirt and grass might do.
The doll sculpture is part of an ongoing exhibit at Vancouver Island University's View Gallery, and was modelled after a vintage doll that the artist, Heather Benning, used to "drag along everywhere with her" as a child.
Before the exhibit's opening reception, Benning, student volunteers and View curator and coordinator Chai Duncan propped the doll in three downtown locations to take photographs: along the shoreline near the Hullo ferry terminal; in front of a decrepit building that was once a spring manufacturer; and in an open area next to a Loaves and Fishes site.
Duncan said they chose those locations partially because of their sense of desolation, and partially because they'd likely be recognizable to many Nanaimo residents.
The Nanaimo locale photos, as well as the doll itself, are on display at the View Gallery and have joined Benning's Field-Doll-House art show – a presentation of two of the artist's projects.
Benning's Field Doll project saw her sculpture placed in different settings in multiple cities across the continent, from farm yards, to roadsides, to empty parking lots, to bridges. The doll's journey is evident in the small repairs and smears of dirt and debris across its body.
“In many photos, the history of the doll and its travels are kind of generic and could be anywhere. But some are specific," Duncan said, adding that viewers often consider place, change, and proportions when they the see the sculpture either in the wild or in the gallery.
The second half of Benning's exhibit showcases the history of her Dollhouse project which involved the interior restoration of a derelict farmhouse that sat empty since the '60s. The project started in 2006 with the removal and replacement of the north wall with plexiglass. The house's interior was then replastered, the roof shingled, and the rooms painted with pastel hues and decorated with vintage furniture. The transparent wall allowed viewers to peek in, as if it were a giant version of child's dollhouse. The Dollhouse asked onlookers to consider what it was that generated a sense of home.
The project ended in 2013 with a fire that burned the building to ash in the snow – which had been part of the plan all along. Benning promised the landowners she would destroy the house as soon as it became unsafe or was compromised. As fate would have it, about six years later, teenagers broke in and posted pictures to social media of themselves dressed up and pretending to be dolls.
Duncan said both projects spoke to notions of home and place, that they are symbols of connectivity to one’s past, to one’s family, to one’s home.
“I grew up in two houses as a child, and when my parents sold the last house that I lived in … It was traumatic for me, even though I was in my 40s. And saying goodbye to all these memories … I think the spaces that we occupy for long periods of time leave a trace of ourselves. So when it disappears, where does it go?”
The VIEW Gallery will show Field-Doll-House until Oct. 31. More information on the projects can be found online at www.heatherbenning.ca.
