The Uncanny Life – artifact and identity exhibition is an extension of the research undertaken for Jan Donaldson’s PhD project and explores the doll/puppet as a cultural icon and artifact.  Including contemporary jewellery, object and sculptural works, the research investigates the doll as not just a plaything, but as an object intimately linked to identity.

Donaldson’s fascination with the uncanny includes experimentation with puppetry and masks and forms an important aspect of the project. These theatrical elements, which include the ability to express identity through movement, allow for the exploration of larger narratives, alluding to the drama and folly of human existence. When inanimate objects are seen to be brought to life, preconceived ideas about the boundaries between life and death blur. These objects serve as a bridge between our hidden and conscious worlds.

Some of the works also reference folk tales and nursery rhymes. Donaldson seeks to recover a more sensual, childlike world, with all its attendant bafflement, shock, raw desire, clumsiness, illusion and disenchantment. Though re-interpretation and the re-telling of folk-lore, contributions to new stories and myths are created and benefit their evolution, culture and dispersion.

The works are displayed in a ‘built room’ installation. Donaldson’s intention is to create an intimate space,  integrating notions of personal place and intimate themes/settings, such as the tomb and the theatre, associated with the prevalence of doll artifacts throughout history and across different cultures.

Individually and collectively the dolls reveal the intimate and the personal. Imbued with both historically generic as well as autobiographical associations – reliquaries of the artist’s own contemporary existence – they come together as a collection of individual artifacts that are at once ‘canny’ and ‘uncanny’ in their creation; objects to show our existence – a trace of self.