Thursday, December 20, 2007

Doll Neighborhood: A Call to Artists

Join us as we explore the idea of collaboration surrounding the creation, interaction and display of a collection of unique, handmade dolls. We welcome artists to be a part of this social as well as artistic experiment, a meeting of minds as well as of creative designs. Artists who become members of the collaborative will take part in a sewing circle and video story by welcoming unguarded dialogue as our dolls take on lives of their own. All dolls created by “doll neighborhood” members and our video story will be exhibited at the Renate Albertsen-Marton Space @ Gureje on Pacific Street, between Underhill and Washington Avenue, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn (opening April 4).

Sewing skills are not required; membership is free; a dedication to the collective vision is imperative. The Village @ Gureje is a committed partner in this project and will provide meeting and exhibition space along with community support.

All Doll Neighborhood members must attend three creative workshops leading up to the exhibition: the first to exchange materials that we will use to make our dolls (Feb. 5), the second to make our dolls together (Feb. 26), the third to make a video in which our completed dolls interact (March 11).

Prospective members should send a paragraph including personal reflections in response to the Doll Neighborhood premise, 1-2 images (72dpi /6 inch max JPGs) of past work or a link to your website, and contact information, to dollneighborhood@gmail.com. Deadline Jan. 25, 2008. Artists will be notified of acceptance by Jan. 29. For more information about this collaborative project and the Village @ Gureje space, please visit www.dollneighborhood.org.

Download PDF version of Call to Artists.

2 comments:

ashraf said...

This sounds really interesting, but I am not sure I understand it. What is unguarded dialogue? Are the dolls related to each other in anyway... as in materials, scale, or construction...? What sort of materials...Obvious things like eyes, heads, buttons, doll parts, or less obvious things like found objects?

Love to hear more.
Ash

k.b.e. said...

Good point: what IS unguarded dialogue? That which is not filtered through social norms? That which only takes place when we speak through alter-egos? There is no set definition, but I think we are getting at the idea that the dolls will communicate without the standard constraints. Perhaps they will say what we cannot say, in "normal" life?
Yes, the dolls are related in that we make them in the same space, together (albeit with extra making sessions apart from the neighborhood, to finish our respective dolls). Otherwise, they are subject to each individual Doll Neighborhood Member's artistic license, and therefore diverge. All materials can come into the mix--obvious, or not. The found object idea is wonderful, and the stranger, the better. But we were thinking that sewing would act as the thread that would run through all dolls, literally/figuratively. Perhaps that was too great of an assumption, that all dolls would be made with some amount of sewing, even if artists did not have experience sewing. Perhaps some dolls could be made with no sewing whatsoever. It can be left to each individual member of the group to decide.