liberarsi della pelle del pupazzo d’infanzia

Sabrina Mandelli

liberarsi della pelle del pupazzo d’infanzia

2023

Print on A4 paper

21 x 29.7 cm

Childhood, with its objects (often toys) and the connected memories, serves as the ground for this exercise in shedding or liberation. The object in question is Tigger or Tigro, a puppet representing the fictional character of Tigger, an anthropomorphic tiger, from the stories by A. A. Milne and the illustrations of E. H. Shepard. This puppet or doll served as a childhood companion with an educative purpose. By pressing the puppet at certain spots recordings of Tigger’s voice could have been heard. Both memory itself and vessel of memories this doll stands symbolically and literally for childhood. Its surfaces have been imprinted and informed by the artist’s actions as a child.

The presented list of actions oscillates between instructions for future actions and documentation of past acts. 36 actions each describing an action with no reference to time or their hypothetical nature. Ranging from arbitrary everyday actions to more destructive actions, this list unfolds its potential in relation with the childhood toy of Tigger. Ways of losing, giving away, changing, altering, cutting, dissecting, infecting invite the audience to imagine what has been done, will be done, or should be done.