During the late 1970s
Laurie Simmons began creating “a group of photographs that narrate and question
the relationships between beings and things,” using doll figures in surrounding
environments.

“What objects deserved to be anthropomorphized?
That seemed like the easy part, and after awhile, things just presented
themselves to me in obvious ways—a tiny plastic camera keychain from Times
Square, a child’s microscope, an old microphone, and masses of cakes and
petit-fours. . . It felt like assembling a cast of characters for a musical or
repertory company,” said Simmons.

In 1987, she began a series where a pair of legs
(mostly female) carries things on top, such as a camera, a cake, a purse, and
even a house model. In Walking John
Hancock, a pair of mannequin female legs supports the phallic John Hancock
Center skyscraper in Chicago (which was constructed by one of the best-known
male architects), as if the artist is expressing a feminist statement that the
modern cityscape has been supported by women.