Dolls left as acknowledgement for those who have been made outcast.
Sometimes in the face of trauma we wonder what we can even do to help. I believe that even the smallest acts can bring healing and I'm grateful to be able to make something with my hands such as a doll to gift to the living and to the dead. Since 2013, I have been drawn to sites of historical trauma and pain for women and children to leave lovingly created dolls as simple gifts for the spirits of the outcast and forgotten. The three main areas of offerings have been at the sites of Magdalene Laundries in Australia and Ireland, the Cross Bones Graveyard in London a reclaimed pauper’s graveyard for so-called ‘outcast dead’ and the sites of persecution of healers and wise women and just ordinary folk as witches in my ancestral home of Scotland. These projects are ongoing and growing and I have been honoured to meet with survivors of the Magdalene Laundries and orphanages and asylums and to gift the dolls to these courageous and enduring spirits.
