Art that mobilises is unsettling, and portraying pain to promote activism is brave. The Bonolo Botshelo Fragile Life, Art Doll Project, currently on at MuseuMAfricA, attempts to do this.
MJ Hooper conceptualised the project two years ago and has worked on it since then with Anne Marie Moore. The art is didactic — aimed explicitly at raising awareness and educating about child abuse. The two artists gathered another 12 South African women artists to collaborate on the creation of the 16 dolls that make up the main part of the exhibition.
Each artist was asked to create a doll and then hand it over to the next artist to work on, and then the next, relating their work to the theme. The process, Hooper says, was not easy. One felt as though one was giving birth to a child and then letting go and trusting those who took it away would take care of it. Other artists made changes, deconstructed, marked, cut and messed with one’s child. All the anxieties one has as a parent surfaced.
Many artists who worked on dolls started by others felt like abusers. Particularly as some of the dolls that were handed to them were pure, innocent and untainted, and they were the ones to stain and scar the dolls. As the creator of Openheart, Je’anna, said: “We had to abuse the dolls and think of ourselves as abusers. We put our own pain into the dolls, which is probably what abusers do.”
The process of creation was a personal journey. At various stages during the two years the artists were counselled by professionals to help them cope with the emotions the project threw up. And finally, once completed, the artists had to make the dolls accessible and meaningful to us in such a manner that would not make us turn away.
Stories of abuse are told through the dolls and the accompanying journals filled with pictures, poems, comments and photographs. There is a medley of colour, texture and shape in the exhibits and different materials are used — plastic bags, sweets, bottle tops, old bottles, carts, beads, buttons and old plastic toys. There are three-dimensional figures, photographs, writings and hangings. Curated imaginatively by Gordon Froud, the displays capture one’s imagination.
Each doll is a child. Like Luke, originally created by Hooper. He sits with his legs in front of him, high up on a pile of boxes with his black eyes — indicating the loss of innocence. Yet one eye has some colour showing through — there is hope. He has a pocket full of treasures — string, elastic bands, sand and his tooth. Just an ordinary boy but with a heart made of tin.
Anastasia MacDonald’s doll Kora is a baby that is loved and protected – how children should be. She is covered with beads and wears amulets to keep her safe and has a blanket protecting her. She is secure from invasion of any sort.
Something from Nothing, by Tamar Mason, is made of cloth, orange bags, buttons, plastic bags and bubble wrap — things we throw away. She is a throwaway child, but has an expressive face and a presence that makes one want to protect her as she lies in her decorative, but stained blanket.
Some artists removed part of their doll’s anatomies. A glass case that was constructed around the doll named Bibi, by Rookeya Gardee, to protect her from abuse, was broken in the process — an intentional act of violation.
Proceeds from an accompanying exhibition by high-profile artists will go to support NGO Teddy Bear Clinic. The clinic has its own installation as part of the exhibition.
The details
Bonolo Botshelo Fragile Life, Art Doll Project is on at MuseuMAfricA, 121 Bree Street, Newtown, Johannesburg, until the end of March. Tel: (011) 833 5624.