Exhibition Info: 

The House That Dildos Built is a small home or enclosure created solely using used/old/donated sex toys compressed into bricks, pressed between plexiglass panes, and suspended in acrylic. The walls, ceiling, and every part of the structure will be a composite of all kinds of sex toys. The roof’s shingles are made from discarded packaging. The curtains are dental dams and bags from the packaging heat sealed together

Thematically, the house is a three-dimensional Where’s Waldo? or I Spy collage of an adult nature. Each item used in the construction will be donated by businesses and individuals who will mail in their discarded items. Much like a playground tarmac made with recycled tires, this house is whole and shredded sex toys. There are entire toys visible, but also more abstract “sand art”-like pieces with vessels full of colorful bits.

The sheer size of the amount we collect will be one part of the work (I estimate I can fill at least one shipping container) and the creation of the sculptural piece will be another separate component of the work. Ideally, the house itself is the artwork, but pieces and performances can happen inside the structure. Anything from dance to music to sex ed to a gallery exhibition. 

The house is a testament to the sheer size of the sex toy industry, as well as the lack of resources available for disposing of or recycling any household appliance, much less, sex toys, and their parts. People underestimate the size of the $15 billion pleasure industry, which means we also underestimate the size of the waste created by it. Given the taboo nature of a “sin industry”, we have a massive unaddressed issue with what we do with our retired vibrators, dildos, and the like. 

The sex toy industry is a relatively new one, and it wasn’t all that long ago that people would get arrested for selling sex toys. To this day, the legality of this industry is in constant flux based on local laws. There are countless examples of this. This installation is intended to overwhelm, but also enchant. It is a place you could spend hours zoning out on all the colors, shapes, and individual pieces, or casually walk through without noticing you’re inside a house of sex toys until it’s already too late. For some, sex toys are everyday objects and quite pedestrian in nature, while to others they create a knee-jerk sense of shame, inferiority, curiosity, or discomfort. 

The individual pieces of furniture that exist within the house can be sold as individual art pieces. One idea that comes to mind is a weapons safe or locker in a part of the house with “weapons” solely constructed from sex toys – a way of also expressing the absurdity of how gun rights are more protected than rights to pleasure. 

As a sex toy store owner, I alone recently recycled 50lbs of sex toys by giving them to an artist who works with silicone and motorized mechanisms. If I as one person have this much to dispose of, I can only imagine how much my network of adult industry and pleasure product professionals could accumulate. I have been a 2D porn collage artist since the age of 18, and I would like to scale this up into something much larger and installation-oriented. 

My primary needs would be funding for shipping costs to cover donated toys, as well as a physical space that would be enthusiastic about hosting this project for a longer period of time. Given that it is in part a statement about environmental impact, as well as the recent “household name” viral nature of some specific sex toys, this is a dual-pronged positive statement about the pleasure product industry – our desire to be treated with respect and given basic resources of any other industry of this size.

My main concern is health and safety during construction. Making sure no toxic/corrosive elements are inhaled or accidentally coming into contact with the artists helping construct the structure would be my primary concern. Care would need to be taken as far as sanitizing the donated items as well. Once the structure is finished, however, all items would ideally be sealed in such a manner that they no longer cause a health issue if touched (i.e. lithium-ion batteries, etc.)

Material ideas:

-Mesh wire fencing/retainer walls

-dental dam curtains

-filling the plexiglass with the wires, motors, batteries separately

-cool lighting

-cardboard from packaging is used

-plastic sheaths on outside heat sealed together

Other ideas:

-Potential for it to be a barge constructed on water that can be towed around and docked various places (easy media attention)

-”sand art” to make an image using chopped up bits

Collaborators:

Malek Lazri

Contact Zoe@spectrumboutique.com to learn how to participate