On Research

November 2022

vintage glass dolls, cotton scraps, burlap, scrap trims and ribbon, vintage button, shoe box with parchment, fashion history books, stage management bible, sewing needle and thread, thread scissors, flashlight, table and chair in varying heights, binder of compiled doll research and patterns, a CD player playing Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet plus its case, and a laptop computer recording in reverse

After being unable to go on a research trip with my grad school classmates due to a flare up of my condition, when tasked to make a performance based on our archival research findings, I had no choice but to draw on my alienation due to the health problems that prevented me from attending the trip as normal. On Research is a puppet show on the isolation of illness meeting the isolation of research. Drafting and sewing 1830s inspired dresses for vintage glass dolls, I demonstrate process as performance, exposing every aspect of my research process through photos, pattern pieces, research books, and a documented sewing process, with the finishing touches completed by handstitching as a puppet show above the documentation and books for my classmates.

*photos pending