The Orange Bridge will be closed for 15 minutes at 6 a.m. on Sunday so a photo can be taken of a 16-foot doll lying on the highway.
The Field Doll, a conceptual art piece by Heather Benning, will also be making an appearance at other places in Nelson during the summer.
Benning has exhibited the Field Doll both in Canada and the U.S. by placing the work in the context of each specific place via photographs which are an essential part of the process and presentation. The work is an irreverent ode to place and change and the proportion of both to the viewer and their perspective.
The doll is dropped into scenes, as if by the whim of a petulant child, and there is a whimsy and wackiness to this large scale installation piece which underlies the inherent sadness and challenge of expectations of the cast off doll in unexpected places.
The exhibition of photographs, attended by the doll itself, will open on Friday, August 10 at 7 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m. The exhibit is curated by Arin Fay.
Heather Benning writes:
“Cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan writes that place acquires deep meaning for the adult through the steady accretion of sentiment over the years. Tuan goes on to say that this sentiment for place accrues not necessarily through grand happenings but through small, almost nameless intimate experiences. Just as humble unspoken moments render places intimate; so do quotidian objects, like, for example a child’s doll. We do not typically pay heed to such items the way we would objects of art; rather, they become part of the fabric of our lives, too close to be noticed. However, as Tuan writes, if contemplated, we feel for these ordinary objects what a thing of beauty makes us feel – as though we are in the midst of an independent presence.
“As children we relate to objects with directness unshackled by the protective cynicism of adulthood; Yi Fu Tuan suggests that this openness grants children the ability to know the world more sensuously than adults, adding that this lost childhood gift of receptivity ‘is one reason why the adult cannot go home again.’”