sawyer construction

(description:) A metal doll that represents ways of looking, constructed from old found materials.

The sculpture’s main body consists of a door handle that represents its bust, a double pipe clamp that forms its torso, two more door handles representing legs in a sitting position on top of a block of wood, with a receiver panel with antennae where one collects and the other sends out information (fictionally) on its lap.
Its form is also made to resemble a scientific apparatus, like a microscope that is made out of old materials and values, which makes it become more like a kaleidoscope.

The metal doll is a reconstruction of the doll shown in the black and white picture it is inspecting. It explores the process of morphing and construction of identity through the act of seeing, while its mechanical form presents a threat of stagnancy. Its self-reflexive state questions what it sees and how it sees and why, its separateness, and more importantly its relatedness to its self and world.

The moveable parts make more physical interaction with the doll possible and could make the viewer reflect on the temptation and resistance to access or look into another. With the doll’s own agency (also the viewer) as its head, turning it could potentially invert the polarities of privacy and loss of autonomy, which is brought out by processes of looking, so it protects itself (from itself and others) with the spikes.
The use of parts of furniture also compares the idea of identity to home, and the process of building from old to new. It was also made without a vision of the final outcome to reflect the semi-controlled and spontaneous construction process from the given materials and circumstances.

(background:)sawyer is a doll made by my step-grandmother. my family "abandoned" him when they left the UK so I took him in!

sawyer represents my constant movement (houses, families, schools, countries), sometimes being left behind, and sometimes being the one who leaves.
he represents a drifting and changing identity, but one that I also need to grasp and depend on, so I initially depicted him as a burial boat.

the structure of the sculpture is inspired by these Reg Butler's sculptures on the right.

Sawyer construction (2022) 18 cm * 10 cm * 42 cm
welded found scrap metals (including doorknobs, nails, wires, a double pipe clamp, etc.) a wooden block, ink-printed paper

"The idea of an metal and spiky doll was interesting to me, it reminded me of the Wire mother experiment, and also the role of one’s parent figures play in the development of the person."

"“This style became known as the ‘Khartoum School,’ as El Salahi and his contemporaries attempted to construct a visual language for a united Sudanese identity.”

I encountered this piece in the section, The Unfinished Conversation, which explores the nature of diasporic (‘to scatter’) identity. “Today it refers to people who have migrated from one part of the world to another, or come from families who have.”

“...This draws upon Hall’s ideas that our cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming’, rather than simply ‘being’”".

El-Salahi, I. (1964) They always appear [Oil on canvas].
Tate, London.

:]You should have met him at the entrance!

THE DIVIDED SELF by R.D.Laing:
"A variety of ways of looking is discussed in this book:
'... don't be angry if I tell you that it is the aim of my life to get people to look at me'
(Laing referencing a line in Kafka’s ‘Conversation with a Suppliant’), how the look could penetrate, looking through other people’s eyes, looking at one’s self… resulted from and resulting into struggles with unrealness. I thought how the look could in a way construct reality would play an essential part in most social conflicts, (it was a school project about social commentary) and I could illustrate this look."