"A dollhouse for Rachel Whiteread"
sculpture & meeting Rachel Whiteread, 2009-2011
Circa 120x70cm
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The encounter with Rachel Whiteread’s cast stairwell left an indelible mark on me. The sheer physicality of the piece, its capacity to provoke an unexpected emotional response, made me want to delve deeper into her artistic universe. Whiteread’s work, which manipulates the negative space left by everyday objects and architecture, explores the often-unseen relationships between human beings and the spaces they inhabit. This immediate confrontation with her piece sparked a chain of reflection about how space shapes our perception, our lives, and our identities. In this moment, I recognized a parallel between Whiteread’s approach and my own understanding of spatiality in art.
As I began to immerse myself in the study of Whiteread’s oeuvre, I noticed a resonance in the way we both engage with the intersection of humans and their environments. It became clear that Whiteread’s work spoke to me not only on an intellectual level but also on an intuitive, emotional one. Her art offered me a lens through which to further explore my own artistic practice. In this way, she unintentionally became a mentor—guiding my artistic quest through her exploration of space and memory. Whiteread’s ability to evoke the hidden, to give form to absence, helped me articulate my own thoughts about the spaces we occupy, the ones that shape us, and the ones that remain ever elusive.
I felt compelled to reciprocate the profound impact that her work had on my understanding of space and perception. In my exploration of her practice, I encountered the fact that she collects dollhouses—objects that, in their miniature form, carry deep psychological and relational meaning. A dollhouse, as a relational object, is one that connects the maker and the one it is made for, often symbolizing a bridge between generational or emotional divides. A dollhouse can serve as a surrogate home, a place where familial bonds are enacted and where control over space and narrative is exercised on a small scale.
This insight into Whiteread’s fascination with dollhouses sparked the genesis of my own work. I began to conceptualize a dollhouse of my own, using my childhood home as the blueprint. However, rather than adhering to the conventional form of a fully enclosed structure, my dollhouse would be radically open—intentionally omitting walls, allowing the viewer to see not only the exterior but also the interior, the empty spaces between rooms. This decision was rooted in my desire to suggest, rather than prescribe, a sense of home. The absence of walls was a deliberate rejection of the traditional enclosed domestic space. It becomes, in itself, a comment on the notion of belonging and the limits of spatial confinement.
The only room that I chose to define within the dollhouse was the staircase. This was a deliberate allusion to the initial experience that led me to Rachel Whiteread’s work—a physical encounter with her cast stairwell, which in its sculptural form captures the spatial significance of movement between levels. In Whiteread’s stairwell, the space between floors becomes a potent metaphor for transitions, thresholds, and the fluidity of space. For me, the staircase in my dollhouse was not just a functional element; it was the key to understanding the psychological and emotional layers of the home itself. It is a symbol of ascent and descent, movement and stasis, the passage between one state of being and another.
This dollhouse—without walls, but with a defined staircase—marks the first part of my work. The second part, as I envision it, involves presenting this piece in a way that invites others into the space I have constructed. The presentation of the dollhouse is not merely an act of display but a means of engaging others in a dialogue about space, memory, and the relational dynamics between humans and their environments. It is an invitation to examine how we construct and deconstruct the spaces we call home, how we navigate the tension between what is enclosed and what is exposed.
In conclusion, this project stands as a reflection of my journey into understanding spatiality, inspired by the works of Rachel Whiteread. Through the process of creating my own dollhouse—both as an object and as a conceptual space—I am engaging with the deeper questions of domesticity, memory, and the subtle psychological forces that shape the way we inhabit our environments. The dollhouse is not just a miniature model; it is a representation of my own relationship to space, one that is fragmented, open, and constantly in flux.
ad herself.
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a Special thanks to Laurence Dujardyn, Sven Overheul,Mi Casa & Rachel Whiteread