Research

Research is at the heart of The Dollie House.

We approach research as a living, evolving practice - one that moves beyond observation into relationship, participation, and exchange. Through visual ethnography, documentary practice, and creative inquiry, we explore how people, communities, and environments produce meaning, memory, and belonging.

Our research process is grounded in attentive listening: noticing the stories held in landscapes, archives, gestures, objects, rituals, conversations, and everyday experiences. We are interested in the visible and invisible layers of human experience - what is documented, what is remembered, and what is carried across generations.

The Dollie House engages with interdisciplinary research that brings together visual culture, anthropology, art, ecology, social histories, and community knowledge. We collaborate with artists, academics, researchers, activists, cultural practitioners, and communities to investigate questions around identity, place, transformation, climate, heritage, and collective futures.

Our research is not only a process of gathering information, but a way of creating space for reflection and imagination. We believe research can be a form of care - a practice that honours lived experience, challenges dominant narratives, and opens pathways for deeper connection.

Through our work, we create archives of the present while exploring possibilities for the future.