Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Tiffany Duong

Raging Blondes

Barbie fights against Barbie in a recreation of an aggressive play scenario from my childhood. There can only be one winner, but both go home with their own set of losses.

“In aggressive child's play, socially unacceptable behaviours - otherwise suppressed due to social consequence - manifested inconsequentially thus, shamelessly. Barbie, whose anatomy is both humanly representational yet alien, operates as a homunculi that blurs reality with the imaginary world of play. Through play, I breathe life into the doll - replacing her inanimacy and subsequent immortality with projections of my own consciousness and human immanence. However, Barbie never crosses the threshold of aliveness, remaining a product of human thought. Those feelings and the necessity to regulate them within patriarchal structures persist, even as I grew up and out of playing with dolls.Furthermore, I seek to comment on the competition between women driven by the patriarchy, reflected in the range of dolls mass produced by different companies. The Polly Pockets engage with the larger Barbies in an almost Babylonian way, brawling among themselves, while other dolls egg the fight on from the sidelines.”