AMBER   HAWK   SWANSON
Media Appearance: aired 2008 Face Scan: The Making-of Amber Doll, 2006 Day One: The Making-Of Amber Doll, 2007 Day Two: The Making-of Amber Doll, 2007 Day Three: The Making of Amber Doll, 2007 Day Four: The Making-of Amber Doll, 2007 Day Five: Amber and Doll Wed in Las Vegas During the 2007 Miss America Pageant To Hold, Cake Cut To Hold, Queer Wedding Portrait To Have, Cake Face Wedding Reception: Amber and Doll Performance Excerpt, 2007 To Violate, Tailgate (Bears v. Saints) To Violate, Tailgate Mouth Tailgate: Amber and Doll Performance Excerpt, 2007 To Violate, Girls Gone Wild (eXXXotica) eXXXotica (Girls Gone Wild): Amber and Doll Performance Excerpt, 2008 To Have, Rollerrink To Violate, Rollerrink Rollerskate: Amber and Doll Performance Excerpt, 2007 To Hold, Pinball, 2008 Pinball: Amber and Doll Performance Excerpt To Hold, Bibbidi Bobbidi (After) To Have, To Hold, and To Violate: Amber 
and Doll Installation Image, 2008 To Have, To Hold, and To Violate: Amber 
and Doll Installation Image, 2008 Funerary Installation
Amber Doll
I commissioned the production of a life-like sex doll, a RealDoll, made of a posable PVC skeleton and silicone flesh, in my exact likeness. My doll, Amber Doll, began as a Styrofoam print-out of a digital scan of my head. Her face was then custom-sculpted and later combined with the doll manufacturer's existing, "Body #8" female doll mold. After completing, "The Making-Of Amber Doll" and "Las Vegas Wedding Ceremony" (both 2007), Amber Doll and I went on to disrupt wedding receptions, roller-skating rinks, football tailgating parties, theme parks, and adult industry conventions. In the resulting series, "To Have, To Hold, and To Violate: Amber and Doll," ideas surrounding agency and objectification are questioned, as are ideas about the success or failure of negotiating power through one's own participation in a cultural narrative that declares women as objects. My work with Amber Doll, herself a literal object, deals with such themes through an oftentimes-complicated feminist lens.

To view early Amber Doll Project "sketch" videos and other videos not included in this portfolio please visit my Vimeo Profile.

Read full Artist Statement for the Amber Doll Project. Download a PDF containing full Artist Statement and image inventory by clicking the Packet Download (PDF) tab above.
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