2024 08 Isla de las Muñecas

This project began with the online assemblage class taught by Michael de Meng called Fractured Fairytales. I decided that my story was going to be based on Mexico's Isla de las Muñecas (Island of the Dolls) that I had a chance to visit in 2016 on a Michael de Meng workshop in Mexico City. 

The island now known as Isla de las Muñecas today is in the water channels south of Mexico City at Xochimilco. The original owner of the island was Don Julián Santana Barrera.

The legend is that Barrera discovered a drowned girl in the canal. The next day he found her doll floating in the river and hung it as tribute to the dead girl. To ward off bad juju, he continue to add to the doll collection.

By 1943, the location was famous enough to make it into the film María Candelaria by director Emilio Fernández. 

The legend continued to build when in 2001, at the age of 80, he drowned supposedly in the spot where he found the girl. 

To reach the island today you ride in a trajineras which is rowed by a pilot.

Barrera's survivors continue to operate the location as a tourist attraction. Part of the ritual of visiting the island now is to hear a survivor of Barrera tell the eerie tale of the island while sitting in front of the founder.

Of course, the highlight of the trip is the dolls strewn around the island.

Michael's hopes for our project in the Fractured Fairytale workshop was to make a number of panels that would illustrate your choice. I decided that the structure of an old clock would give me the three spaces that I was looking for. 

The clock, a wood boat and what I believe might be a glass cigarette ashtray

I had to add two river beds to the clock

The trees were made out of rebar wire

The bark was made out of paper mache

Warning: if you ever decide to use a dremel on a plaster item, DO IT OUTSIDE

I decided to incorporate this photograph of the island's guide that I took in 2016. 

The lowest panel of this piece appropriately represents the original drowning victim found by Don Julián Santana Barrera. I used resin to create the water.

The middle part of this piece represents the slow ride down the channel to Isla de las Muñecas.

Each boat on the river has a name

The top part of the piece and the trees are representative of the absolutely magnificent dolls of Isla de las Muñecas.

Thus we have Isla de las Muñecas. It is 21"H X 22"W X 8"D. It consists of a Clock Body, Plaster Doll Head, Photograph, Wood Boat, Glass Cigarette Ash Tray, Artificial Flowers, Toy Cowboy, Plastic Baby Dolls (16), Resin, Plaster Cast, Paper Mache  and Paint.