DONNA BASSIN - What Remains: Dollhouse. Birdhouse. 5 (2003)

pinhole photograph, archival pigment print, 24H x 16 1⁄2W in (61H x 42W cm), AP edition

The Afterlife of Dolls began as play therapy after I assisted families at Ground Zero following 9/11. In my clinical consulting room, a Zero Image pinhole film camera became the fourth wall of a dollhouse. The pinhole remained open for 45 minutes, the duration of a psychotherapy session. Between sessions, miniature figures and furniture were rearranged to reflect both my experience and what I witnessed in patients struggling with the aftermath of 9/11. The pinhole camera was essential to this process. With no lens and few controls, I had to relinquish the control I was accustomed to as a photographer. Long exposures produced distortions, soft focus, and unexpected shifts in scale and perspective. I could construct a scene but never fully anticipate the resulting image, a surrender to uncertainty and to where grief might lead. Play allowed what could not yet be known or spoken to emerge through the unexpected, offering a way to begin reassembling ourselves after collective trauma without denying what had been broken.

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