Kane Garrison Small World Installation

January 26th, 2026

For my Small World Installation, I would like to create a fun house designed for adults to get back in touch with their inner child. This is a topic that I am very passionate about, as I fear many adults lack the same sort of whimsy and pure viewpoints and forget that life can be fun too. I am inspired by the work of Yayoi Kusama, and how she brings bright colors and fun patterns into her installations. I want my mini installation to be full of bright colors and places to explore.

 

I am currently planning on using a wooden castle that I have had for a while for my mini installation, but am open to other forms of dollhouses. My installation will be in the form of a fun house, made with materials such as plush toys, fabric, and foam to create a soft land where one can relax. The floors are intended to be a bit squishy so that its soft but not impossible to walk on. The walls will be patterned in some rooms and fuzzy in others, and I would like the walls to be squishy as well. 

The installation will have other sculpture and objects to explore, but I have not decided what all should be included. So far I have the idea of including giant stuffed animals, a foam pit, bean bag chairs, and a bubble room where viewers can roll around in a giant bubble. I believe adding sculptures similarly shaped to the ones in this installation by Yayoi Kusama may help the installation, but I am open to more ideas on that as well.

Kane, this is an enthusiastic and imaginative starting point, and your interest in play, whimsy, and re-engaging an inner child comes through clearly. Yayoi Kusama is an appropriate reference for thinking about immersive environments, repetition, pattern, and sensory experience, and it makes sense that her work is guiding your use of color and tactility.

For this project, I want to encourage you to keep focusing on scale and translation. The “fun house” idea is strong conceptually, but at a miniature level the challenge is not recreating everything that would exist at full scale, but deciding what suggests that experience most effectively. Plush floors, fuzzy walls, and patterned surfaces can all work, but you’ll need to think carefully about how a viewer encounters and reads the space visually rather than physically.

The wooden castle or dollhouse is a good found object starting point, especially because it already implies childhood, play, and interior rooms. As you move forward, ask yourself:

• Where does the viewer “enter” the space visually?

• What makes this feel like an environment rather than a collection of mini objects?

• Which elements are essential to the feeling of play, and which could be implied rather than fully built?

Right now you have many possible components (stuffed animals, foam pit, bubble room, furniture), and it’s okay not to decide everything yet. I’d encourage you to choose one or two dominant material ideas and push those further, rather than trying to include every feature of a full-scale fun house.

This is a promising direction. The next step is refinement—simplifying, committing to a clear spatial logic, and letting scale do the work. Focus on how color, repetition, and softness can create a sense of play within a small interior, and you’ll be in a good place to move forward.