Could you give me a chair without armrests?

In this photographic series, the artist constructed a large-scale fabric replica of herself and placed it in the most intimate spaces of her daily life: the family dining room, the bathtub, her bed, her car, in front of her bicycle. The doll is large and deliberately disproportionate. It is not an idealized or corrected representation: it is a body that occupies space without shame, without hypervigilance, without inner conflict. It smiles. It is very beautiful. And yet it doesn't fit.

The doll was handmade with her mother, as the artist struggles with sewing, a detail that is not insignificant: the same figure who at some point pointed out her own body, helping her construct the version of herself capable of inhabiting it unapologetically. The creative process was itself a ritual: choosing the materials, taking measurements, shaping a replica that would do what she couldn't do without conflict. Once finished, the artist would take it to the chosen spaces and leave it alone for a few moments.

Seeing her replica occupy those spaces was strange. The artist confesses to having felt jealous of the doll, of an object that represents her experiencing what she so deeply longs for: simply being. Without calculating the space it occupies, without anticipating the discomfort of those around her. People who encountered the doll constantly remarked on how beautiful it was. No one asked if it would fit.

Growing up in a body considered fat by those around her, the artist developed a heightened awareness of the physical space she occupied, not only in public spaces but also in her own. Her physical size became a problem to be solved even at home: the feeling of being too big for her own bathtub, her own car, her own bed. The title of the piece refers to a specific moment that crystallized this conflict: once, while using a chair with armrests in a California restaurant, the artist could barely fit into it. No one noticed. But throughout the night, that thought was the only one on her mind.

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (2009) points out that certain bodies are involuntarily transformed into objects of public scrutiny, generating a particular tension: the desire to be seen in direct conflict with the fear of being stared at too much. The doll resolves this tension in the only possible way: by being an object that cannot feel shame. Comically large, painfully large, yet unapologetically present. In this contrast lies the core of the piece. The artist did not construct an ideal; she constructed a version of herself capable of doing what she is still learning: not fitting in and remaining nonetheless.

Bibliography:
Garland-Thomson, R. (2009). Staring: How We Look. Oxford University Press.