Alice Anderson's 'Childhood Rituals' at Freud Museum London

Alice Anderson's exhibition 'Childhood Rituals' at the Freud Museum London (April 14 – June 4, 2011) explores mother-daughter relationships through sculptures that evoke attachment and entrapment. Unlike typical artist projects at the museum, Anderson shifts focus from Sigmund Freud as a father figure to his role as a theorist of parent-child dynamics. Her installation includes a house wrapped in copper-colored doll hair, a spiderweb of red doll hair blocking Freud's study, and a loom in Anna Freud's room with a 'mother doll' and hair strands leading to a hidden corner. The work references Louise Bourgeois formally and conceptually, and echoes Janine Antoni's 1994 installation 'Slumber'. Anderson uses her own red hair as a material, suggesting identity as a product of maternal fantasy. The exhibition questions whether viewers are trapped by the artist's interpretation or bind themselves.