Upon entering Hannah Doucet’s Exiting the Castle at Gallery 44, one becomes filled with a longing nostalgia for one’s childhood playrooms. A sprawling pile of colourful rubber wands and sparkling fruit, set against a glowing yellow wall, creates a striking first impression. Above are silver stars reminiscent of the ones your parents may have stuck to your ceiling so you could go to bed and not face the monster beneath it. Large plastic stars rise from the ground, each wrapped in photos of layered, vibrant fabric. Similarly, the gloves reaching out from the wall depict images of cartoons, flowers, and toys – symbols of innocence. The finishing touch is a comically large blue baseball hat hanging off a pastel green wall, accompanied by some more sparkly fruit. The scene created by Doucet evokes the pure joy, hopefulness and carefree spirit of childhood.
Artistically speaking, the exhibition showcases Doucet’s unique approach to mixed media, highlighting the medium preferred by the artist as a balance between craft and photography. Every detail collaborates with the other, bringing Doucet’s fantasy world to Gallery 44. I found Doucet’s choice to use oversized fruits and colourfully printed gloves to be a way of transforming one’s physical body into that of a child, both in size and in spirit. Evidently, Doucet has meticulously created a “constructed fantasy” of her own.
Along the wall, there are arbitrarily framed stills from the artist’s film, “Wishmaking™”– the missing puzzle piece of context amidst this playroom. The film stills presented in Exiting the Castle illustrate Doucet’s return to the Give Kids The World Village, a non-profit organization that provides week-long wish vacations for critically ill children and their families. As a part of her exploration of using personal narrative in her art, Doucet reflects on her experience of having received a wish trip to Disney World and her stay at Give Kids The World Village when she was ten, following two years of treatment for lymphoma. Notably, she points out that half of the children who qualify for this experience wish to visit one of the many theme parks of Central Florida – a familiar and common wish that Doucet exposes to be much like her exhibition, a constructed fantasy.
Upon closer examination, some of these photographs reveal off-putting aspects in notably enchanting figures and locations. The images now seem out of place in the playroom, as the structures photographed, which date back to the early ’90s, have lost their charm over time and with the context that Doucet’s “Wishmaking™” provides. For instance, a poster displayed in a Florida storefront appears out of place in the “whimsical” exhibition, as it bluntly showcases a fractured poster of a castle reminiscent of Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World.
Similarly, Doucet fractures the reality behind these seemingly charitable and magical appearances, revealing corporate greed and the loopholes within wish-making charities that steer ill children towards choosing wishes for trips to amusement parks that further fund these multi-billion-dollar businesses. This point is highlighted at the end of her film, when she exposes Disney’s intentions by referring to an advertisement for the “Disney Wish” cruise and the company’s donations to the “Make-A-Wish” Foundation, which seems to ensure a return on their investment.
Hannah Doucet’s Exiting the Castle is powerful in its appearance as the artist creates a contrast between the enchanting imagery of childhood with unsettling aspects that reveal deeper truths about corporate greed and the commercialization of these wishes – the adult world.
Text and photo: Antonella Pecora Ruiz
*Exhibition information: Hannah Doucet, Exiting the Castle, November 22, 2024 – February 1, 2025, Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography, 401 Richmond St W. Suite 120, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tue – Fri, 11 am – 5 pm, Sat, 12 – 5 pm.