Alicia Rodriguez scouts two very different manikin-themed museum displays.
 |
| Box Back Terrace (unknown artist) England, 1990s |
‘Something
you can play with/ something you can cuddle/ but nothing that’ll hurt you/ or
get you into trouble’ assures the piece of card to which a tiny peg wooden doll
is fastened. Placed amongst some hundred antique manikins of varying
descriptions as part of Ydessa Hendeles’ From her wooden sleep, these
dolls do not recall memories of ‘play’ however, with their slim, hard bodies
and fragile wooden points in place of hands and feet. They appear to whisper
conspiratorially, uncanny and cruel.
Completely
unintentionally, I see From her wooden sleep fresh from a trip to the
current exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, Small
Stories: at home in a dolls’ house. It is a kind of nightmarish descent.
