Department

Theatre and Performance Studies

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 9-2025

Embargo Period

9-4-2025

Abstract

The Doll’s Head Trail is a grassroots, low-art installation nestled within a Southeast Atlanta wildlife preserve. Constructed by volunteers and visitors from decades of environmental debris, the trail converts waste into folk art-inspired “junk” displays. The creative upcycling ranges from a miniscule shrine to “Toxic Masculinity” to a stark shoe pile commemorating child gun violence. This article details how queer theory’s “temporal turn” provides insights into material performance as collaborative regeneration. The curious vignettes playfully invert hierarchies, revealing the merits of small-time memorialization. Through these defiantly unofficial grassroot performances, the Doll’s Head Trail both remembers and restores community ruins, demonstrating the aesthetic and political potential of low-art material performance.

Journal Title

Puppetry International Research

Journal ISSN

2994-7944

Volume

2

Issue

2

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

N/A

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