Amber Hawk Swanson
Photo by Brad Ogbonna
Video and performance artist Amber Hawk Swanson’s work engages with feminist issues such as agency, objectification, and violence.
She has participated in the doll community since 2005, when she acknowledged her failed attempts to date “organic” women and developed an affinity with “doll husbands” who consider dolls to be life partners. “Amber Doll,” her artistic and romantic companion from 2006-2011, is a sex doll made in her own likeness using a digital scan of her head. While together, the two lived in a collaborative performance called The Amber Doll Project whose purpose was to question the role of the surrogate and investigate dynamics of desire. In Amber Doll > TILIKUM, the Amber Doll was transformed into a replica of the Seaworld bull orca Tilikum, and Hawk Swanson began exploring trans-species theory and fetishism: its spectacle and transgressions. In addition to reacting against the brutality of long-term confinement and exploitation, the project posed broader feminist questions about surrogacy, domination, and enclosure and became the first of many livestreamed performances involving lifelike silicone sex dolls.
New York, NY
Born 1980, Davenport, Iowa
2006 MFA School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL