This is an ongoing collaborative experiment between my handmade Happy Mulatto Dolls and local youth.
By facilitating play sessions and allowing different children to interact with these dolls, I’m interested in observing how younger groups of people casually label and analyze certain bodies and racial traits.
Through multiple iterations, the playdates aim to explore what happens when children have complete physical and creative control over female bodies (especially when they are not explicitly coded as white or black).
3 separate “playdates” were facilitated between people and the dolls.
The first 2 were at the Beehive Childhood Center in East
Providence, Rhode Island. The third was held with college students at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Only the first playdate was not recorded on video.
