Alice Kay-Wood
Inspired by Dollhouse and Dolly from my 2025 poetry collection, Mortal Curses, my digital collages peel away the pearly façade of the domestic ideal. I examine the metaphor of ‘the dollhouse’ by comparing inhabitants of an ideal modern home with children’s dolls. Such dolls live curated lives, drenched in play-pretend, stifled by their inability to untie the ropes binding them to their half-inch-thick floors.
My prints invite a dialogue between truth and performance, prompting viewers to engage in a thematic and visual comparison between ‘the real world’ and the shrunken landscape of ‘the dollhouse’. My self-portraits blend into doll faces, and my photographs of domestic interiors battle images of their miniaturised, wooden counterparts. Coils of rope bind these images to scribbled crayon sketches, many of which reference nostalgic objects from my own childhood, or work produced by 3-7-year-olds in workshops I facilitated. My collages thereby become tied-up bundles, where rope prevents material from expanding into the available negative space; freedom exists, but has become psychologically and culturally inaccessible. This provides a disconcerting glimpse into life spent trapped inside the dollhouse, where personal growth is dismissed in favour of keeping dolls small enough for their dollhouse doors.