Hannah Doucet

MFA IN VISUAL ARTS, YORK UNIVERSITY, JUNE 2021

A Wish Stays With You

A Wish Stays With You was presented at Special Projects Gallery at York University in Toronto and included video works, photographs, and sculptures. This exhibition addresses the personal, political, theoretical, and aesthetic questions that have emerged through my research into the themes of illness, fantasy, and wish fulfillment. The work stems from my own experience receiving a wish trip to Disney World when I was ten after having just finished two years of treatment for Lymphoblastic Lymphoma.

My research represents a ‘pulling back of the curtain’ on the long-standing relationship between the charitable organizations devoted to wishes and the corporate media giant Disney that spins tales of realized dreams. The work weaves together explorations of memory, fairy tales, art, architecture, corporate philanthropy, commerce, advertising, performance, death, illness, disability, and toxic positivity. My thesis satirizes, reflects on, and theorizes around aesthetic seduction at Disney and Give Kids the World Village (GKTWV), linking the worlds of healthcare, Disney, and wish-granting together for their joint pronouncement on the importance and necessity of happiness. Through my critical theorizing of this early-life wish experience, I interrupt the toxic stories I observe within the dual worlds of Disney and wish-granting, inserting nuance and complexity within otherwise purely positive narratives.

Within the exhibition my use of the mediums of photography, video and soft sculpture takes up the aesthetics of branding and marketing alongside built (and crumbling) fantasy spaces and research aesthetics borrowed from my studio wall. These visual languages of presentation (seduction) and research (critical engagement) form the basis of my exhibition.