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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Five: Stimulating the imagination with “opposites and contradictions” > Trapped, Place du Jeu de Balle Flea Market, Brussels, Belgium, 2005
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Trapped, Place du Jeu de Balle Flea Market, Brussels, Belgium, 2005
08-JUN-2005

Trapped, Place du Jeu de Balle Flea Market, Brussels, Belgium, 2005

There are several oppositions and contradictions in this image. A doll, a symbol of innocence, is seemingly imprisoned in a cage made of walking sticks. Dolls are forever young, while walking sticks can imply age and infirmity. The dolls face is light, its eyes wide with hope, while the rest of the image is dark and forbidding. Such an image as this addresses its questions to the imaginations of its viewers, and encourages them to provide their own answers.

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Phil Douglis23-Jul-2006 17:13
Thanks, Ceci, for this moving comment -- it continues the thread started by Marisa and echoed by Celia. To bring the three of you together on this one image is a stroke of good fortune, giving this image the close scrutiny it deserves. Marisa sees it as a metaphor for all of history, the beginning and end of man, trapped in a cell of his own making. Celia sees this image as representing "living death," while you interpret it more directly as a metaphor for punishment of women and children by abusive men. Some might argue that those sticks are there to keep people from touching (or stealing) the doll, but in doing so, the doll seller has inadvertently given me an incongruous subject/context relationship which I've been able to make into an image that has triggered your imaginations.
Guest 23-Jul-2006 04:55
This is the kind of doll I loathed as a child, preferring instead one that was handpainted on formed cloth, from Germany, called "Kathe Kruse" --I still have this little soft creature, after eschewing the blinking, staring dolls of the kind in this image. Your title and composition conjure up so much, it is brilliant; I am reminded that it's mostly men who carry such sticks, stumping along to help them walk in their infirmity, or even in their attempts to "conquer" some tough incline or other. And the plaques on the sticks suggest Austria or even Switzerland -- countries where such paraphenalia is made. Both countries have clouded backgrounds as to the motives of its male leadership, both during and after the war. To me this image is also about the subjugation of women and children, at the hands of domineering men not above using such pieces of wood to make a point. An amazing and powerful image!
Phil Douglis21-Jul-2005 18:17
A huge welcome back to my "photo-analyst in residence," Celia. Your thoughtful comments on this image provide ideas we all can learn from -- and that is the ultimate purpose of this cyberbook. You point out contradictions and opposites here that go beyond my own intentions and in the process make this image appear far more abundant in contrasting elements than I originally planned. Soft vs. stiff, colorful vs. plain, alive vs. dead now become evident to me. I cherish your concept of a doll's soul being trapped in eternal youth, more dead than alive. Your vivid commentary picks up where Marisa left off, and shows the power of the human imagination to create meaning well beyond the image itself, which works here as trigger to thought. It was Marisa who inspired the thinking behind this image -- I went into Brussels with the thoughts she had planted in my mind about opposites and contradictions as expression virtually tugging at my eyeballs. What a treat it is for me to bring both of you to this image, and carry the concepts we are demonstrating in this gallery well beyond where I ever thought they could go. Thanks, Celia, for these fascinating thoughts. They redefine the meaning of this image and illuminate the purpose of the entire gallery for us.
Cecilia Lim21-Jul-2005 10:58
Everything in this image works to emphasize contrast and contradiction here - even the soft form of the doll's clothing and hair against the stiff, unbendable walking sticks, and the brighter colours of the doll's clothes and face against the dark browns descending all around her. It is obvious that this doll simply does not belong here and the "injustice" of placing her there naturally stirs extremely uneasy feelings in us. I've learned here that contraversy creates compelling images too. For me this has to be one of the most haunting images you have ever made, because it takes us into an uncomfortable zone with our feelings. Like you and Marisa, I too have an aversion for these dolls, with their piercing, emotionless eyes staring out of their imperfect, cold skin and well-dressed bodies. Part of my uneasiness for these dolls is that they were made to mimic life, yet they couldn't be farther from that, with their hard, cold bodies that are completely immobile and lifeless on their own. The doll may have a "soul" which is born from the intentions of the doll-maker to create beauty and life, but what he has done is instead trap those beautiful intentions, that is, the doll's soul, into a hard body that cannot move, with eyes that cannot blink and mouth that cannot smile on its own will. This very form of "life" that has been created is ironically trapped in its own body and the walking sticks that cage her in ultimately spell out her fate. Interestingly, the walking sticks also serve to remind us that in a natural world, things age and decay, yet she is trapped in her eternal youth, with every natural course of life taken away from her. She looks like she is alive, but she never even had a chance at life at all. She is, infact, dead.

Phil, you've gone all the way here using opposites and contradictions in visual, physical, conceptual and symbolic form to express a very poignant story about a piece of "life" in a small corner of a market in Brussels. I'm continually amazed by your vision, your ability to recognize and utilize the things at work here to tell stories like this one. That's the mark of a great photographic story teller. Brilliant work Phil!
Phil Douglis06-Jul-2005 22:38
Your grasp of my intentions here are uncanny, Marisa. I took great care to present them in an open-ended way in my own explanation, hoping that my viewers would take it from there. And you certainly have. I share your feelings about clowns and dolls -- they often seem to me to represent evil masquerading as innocence and pleasure. Those huge eyes are so innocent, yet the face is cold and hard and perfect -- the bright red lips are mindful of the artifice of makeup on a corpse. I accept your interpretation of my message as the beginning (childhood) and the end (trapped, embalmed) of the human being. In fact, that was pretty much what I was feeling as I was shooting this image. The tilted sticks do push her towards the inevitable -- a permanent horizontal position. And the contrast between the bright face and dark background does suggest that she is trapped here for eternity. Sinister? Perhaps. This image is really more about the inevitability of death than anything else, and you nailed it. The title "Trapped" as you must interpret it, refers to a life with no place to go but out.
Guest 06-Jul-2005 21:31
This is a sinister image!
Maybe is my own prejudice working on here, because I always hated this kind of dolls (the same with the clowns!). For me, they have something evil... I can't explain it in a rational way, sorry for that, but all my senses are putting on alert. It is something hidden inside what terrified me of this kind of dolls.
And the way you constructed the image just enhace enormously that feeling.
But I'll try to go on writing without my prejudice (if that is possible...).
That jail around her, made of walking sticks, is a superb contradiction, Phil. Youth trapped by oldness... Inocence destroyed by ilness... and there's no way out!
This picture gives an overwhelming feeling... because it goes beyond contradictions. It talks about the beginning and the end of the human being. All his history resumed in just one photograph.
The tilt enhace the impact, because everything is falling... no matter how many sticks we have around... our final destiny is to end in an horizontal position. Nothing can help than, neither the inscriptions of the funny stickers in the sticks...
The dark atmosphere and the shadows in the background speak to us about what is hidden behind, in a deep contrast with the light in the doll's face: light in the beginning... darkness in the end.
Very shocking image!
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