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- Artist Name:
- Aliza Augustine
- Location:
- Israel
- Statement:
- This series is entitled “Playing Grown Up.” Using miniature dolls, and sets placed on fairy tale backdrops, I create narratives which draw on—and enact—
personal history and recollection alongside sociopolitical commentary. The contradiction of good and evil inherent in fairy tales render an appropriate backdrop for the confrontation of narratives between personal fact and fantasy that are not what they seem at first glance. As I reconstruct this narrative of self, I print my work on archival rag paper so as to give the photos the lush feeling of paintings.
The dolls in this series are 1/12 or dolls house scale and jointed so that I am able to position them. Much smaller than fashion dolls, like Barbies, the clothing, shoes and accessories must be handmade for each photograph. When necessary, I print fabric for the clothes and bedding. These details make every shoot a lengthy process. Each time I tackle and create a new situation, I get really excited by the fun I have, transporting me right back to my childhood when I would make little dolls houses from shoeboxes. Often the photography takes less time than the preparation. The work is shot on a set in my studio and only cleaned up in Photoshop.
Currently I am beginning a new series, a subset of “Playing Grown Up” entitled “Is It Safe,” which expands on the set of issues introduced in “Playing Grown Up,” but excavated on a deeper personal and political level. I would say that my work is now moving in the direction of how a public historical narrative as the Holocaust is deeply linked with personal familial history.
As the child and grandchild of Holocaust survivors, the idea of feeling safe has always been a questionable emotion for me. I grew up with dramatically vivid tales of escape, survival and demise, to only recently discover that my Grandfather’s brother was saved by Schindler and is the man I have always known in the pictures in my parent’s wedding.
At present I am drawing new backdrops for the sets using these family photographs, which date from pre through just post-world war two and were taken in Poland, France, and England.
Juxtaposed with these backdrops will be doll narratives, some contemporary, others some historical.
- Biography:
- B. Rehovat, Israel
I arrived in Manhattan on the Queen Mary at the age of four after a stay of one year in England. Raised in the metropolitan New York Area. After living in Providence, RI, Tecumseh, MO, Berkeley, CA, Nantucket, MA and the East Village I have settled down in West New York with a studio and a very nice husband
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