Dolls Found, Words Lost

This book was created in conjunction with an exhibition. Sixteen found objects-discarded dolls, all mass-produced during the 1930s through the 1950s-were photographed on a stage constructed by the artist. Facing pages accommodate short paragraphs of text, each loosely tethered to a restless background, text that is abstruse in meaning and hazy in appearance. The edgy setting lays bare the inability of language and photography to converge seamlessly in the collective space. The text invites the viewer to differential readings, multiple layers of meaning, playful readings that allow the viewer to enter into the text and recompose it-over and over. One cannot locate a center, an imperative-a transcendental signified. It is, rather, an unending play of signs that opens up anew with each reading. This project, thus, plays with lost and reclaimed identity, queries authenticity, toys with the artist's intervention/intention to inject uniqueness into mass-produced objects, and calls into question the systems of presentation and representation.