Why do we give our children dolls? They are toys that ultimately reflect the gendered roles of society. Boys are given action figures while girls receive American Girl or Barbie dolls. And the two operate differently—dolls are played with, dressed up, and treated like children. (The same cannot be said for action figures) We don't expect dolls with genitalia, or dolls that perform outside of culturally inscribed gender roles. Because they are for children, dolls cannot be radical. For this gallery show, I have returned to the imagery of my childhood as an adult, and recreated dolls that are more accurate to life, the kind of dolls that I would play with now. These dolls reflect the multiplicity of narratives and reality of my own life.

The paper dolls, and their narratives that I have created, become similar to a disjointed book— I've taken the images and stories out of the pages of a book and placed them in a space for the viewer. To find everything, the viewer has to go through and pull the dolls out—they are stowed away such as toys are when we are not playing with them. That physical engagement initiates play. Even if the viewer is not acting out narratives with the dolls in the gallery, the idea of play and physical interaction remains there. The note cards are there to provide a multiplicity of narratives; they are not the limit of the stories. I hope to plant the ideas of gendered play within the viewer, and to take the traditional narratives of gender and sexuality and stretch, distort, and subvert them. In the narratives, hopefully the viewer will find something that is relatable, and hopefully the viewer will also find a new narrative—something that will alter his or her thoughts and perceptions about contemporary sexuality.