|
Portobello dolls > Introduction | Inspiration | Te Papa conception | Portobello I | Portobello II | Projects with artists
Te Papa conception
In 1996, Nicola Jackson was asked to work with primary school children on an 'Inspiration Station' for the art and history resource centre at Te Papa (Museum of New Zealand) in Wellington.
Nicola invited the students and staff of Portobello School to be involved in this project, and the 'Portobello doll' was conceived.
Superhero
The design brief was to create a superhero character that children could interact with. Nicola decided to investigate the 'super-ness' of humans, in particular in relation to our genetic ancestors. She decided to use a giant doll to tell stories about what makes humans human and what makes a person an individual.
In her original proposal, Nicola envisaged the following:
What I expect to see in this artwork is a sense of a figure representing something of significance. This significance will be conveyed through the scale of the figure and its dramatic presence. An audience will also see how children who have contributed to the work have chosen to represent themselves in relation to an ancestor and to their family in general.
Nicola Jackson, 1996
Fortune-telling dolls
The 'Portobello' doll sculpture was based on an historic type of doll – the Victorian fortune-telling doll.
My inspiration for the basic structure of Portobello comes from fortune-telling dolls I have seen in books, which were made in the nineteenth century. They had skirts made up of leaves of paper, which could be rotated and opened up to read your fortune for the day.
Nicola Jackson, 2002
|
