What do we mean when we call something a “functional object”? In the history of design, a functional object is typically a utilitarian one—a soup spoon, a coffee maker, a racecar. But histories of design almost never include dolls. This talk proposes the doll as a uniquely functional object, designed with one primary function in mind: to be like us. And yet the ways in which it performs this function are as diverse, complex, and conflicted as we are. Exploring the methods and materials of doll production, both historically and today, we will discover how doll design can challenge not only preconceptions about the design process, but also conventional thinking around the boundaries among design, craft, and technology. Through a series of case studies, we will consider a broad spectrum of doll functions—for both children and adults—ranging from the representation of individual and collective identities, to the enactment of suppressed aspects of the self, to the possibilities of play as an ageless activity. But while we think of dolls as playthings, they also do important social, cultural—and even political—work. This talk will draw connections between dolls’ affordances as designed objects and the work they do in our world.

Freyja Hartzell is Associate Professor of the History of Modern Design, Architecture, and Art at Bard Graduate Center in New York City. Her work investigates the power of designed objects to engage with and influence everyday human life from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day, focusing especially on the dynamics of subject-object relations. She is the author of Richard Riemerschmid’s Extraordinary Living Things (MIT Press, 2022), and is currently completing her second book, Dollatry: Designing Likeness.