Tonia Di Risio, “Open House”

The miniature world of a dollhouse is presented as seemingly full-scale. The camera enters and re-enters the rooms, setting the quiet domestic scene visually while a radio buzzes faintly in the background.

“Currently, my practice has involved an investigation of gendered domesticity in relation to housekeeping, home maintenance, interior decoration and relationships to the miniature. For the past few years I have been researching the history and craft of dollhouses and applying the results of this research to my studio practice. … Exploring the relationships within the suburban family household by staging familiar domestic situations for the camera, this work is part of a larger body of work that investigates the scale between the miniature and the gigantic.” – Tonia Di Risio

Tonia Di Risio has an MFA from the University of Windsor, ON, and currently works as Exhibitions Coordinator for Anna Leonowens Gallery, NSCAD University, Halifax, NS. She has exhibited across Canada and the United States in solo and group exhibitions. Galleries include Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery, Halifax, Gallery 44, Toronto, Forest City Gallery, London, ON, Kamloops Art Gallery, BC, and the Burnished Chariot Gallery, New London, Connecticut.

About this series:
The Interior—that which lies between, the domestic, the inner life, the indoors, the inland country, a closed circuit, the inner sanctum…

In Canada, the Interior refers to the hinterland, sparsely populated resource-rich lands stretching out to the north of distant southern cities, typically described by outsiders as a ‘frontier’. Despite a southern population huddling mostly along the Canada-U.S. border, the soul of Canada is often said to be its north. With this loosely in mind, I put out an open call for submissions for videos that responded to 'the Interior.' Despite the subtle reference to Canadian geography, I wasn’t looking for fist-pumping Canadian nationalism.

In this series, six artists explore the Interior as an idea, a vast terra incognita stretching out across the land, the body, and the mind, a swath of territory defined apart, but intrinsic to the whole. Touching on both the literal and the poetic, these videos take me inwards.
Mark Prier.