As a child play meant using my imagination. 

Play is something supposedly pleasant but my games never ended and to this day my imagination scares me sometimes. That joke that someone is watching at first is very funny but later becomes quite frightening.

This made me think about my mind and how it works. I wanted to illustrate the sense of how something nice or normal becomes an object of terror. I wanted to make the unknown known and the limitless of the night limited through a sculpture.

The thought of shadow use and a two phased work came to mind but each person has a unique way that their mind works and would interpret it differently.

Many different scary instants and situations came to mind that could be used but they are so different with nothing in common except for one factor: the person. The mind in all these situations and scary moments is the only real factor (I hope).

So I decided to think more along the lines of the mind and how to illustrate how the mind itself plays with you. Then I thought of the little voice in your head which tells you gently and quietly about all the things hidden in the night. The voice which asks what was that?

This creature became the centre of my thoughts; this little deviant which scares you at night. I decided to create this little monster. To give the voice a face to be associated with.

 My guardian and protector of all things scary and invisible to the adult world was my toy rabbit, Sh’nokums. He was through my imagination just as powerful as anything that scared me.

This dual role that our imagination plays is just another way the mind plays with us.

The more I thought about the appearance of this voice the more it occurred to that a unique creature that caters to my own imagination would not be easily associable to other people. So I choose to use the toy, the little protector as my platform to show the mind and how ir works.

The mix match of rabbit’s head and teddy bear’s body represent how the mind encases memories and emotions jumbling them up especially in dreams. The patches on the toy and the stitching is to make it seem more homemade which corresponds with the how the mind is complex and each one unique yet the same.

The base of the sculpture is an eye which represents both the senses and the human body. The connection between the mind and the body is key to the mind having influence over us. The eye is also symbolic of how perception is key and how easily our perception is manipulated by elements even by ourselves.

The exposed skeleton on the back side of the rabbit toy represents the darker side of the mind and the scarier, dangerous thoughts we keep hidden deep in our minds. It represents what is not shown but always there at the core of oneself.

The overall deformed appearance of the toy is to show how we are all damaged and fill our own worlds with fear and terror and how these negative emotions negatively affect us.