Title of the work: Killing Teddy Bears
In Killing Teddy Bears, Jacqueline Delaye ruthlessly blows apart the charade of childhood innocence. The scene, carefully disguised as a fairy tale—prop mushrooms, smiling butterflies, a fantasy forest—is nothing more than a cheap set that crumbles before the artist’s savage gesture: holding the decapitated head of a teddy bear like a war trophy.
There is no nostalgia or tenderness here. There is contained rage, a fierce contempt for the idea that growing up is a neat, almost poetic process. The fur hat blurs the boundaries between girl and predator, while the toy gun, painted in garish colors, becomes an uncomfortable reminder of how early we learn to normalize violence. From the cradle we are trained: smile, obey, shoot.
Delaye not only breaks with fantasy: she guts it with relentless precision. The teddy bear—that ridiculous symbol of prefabricated comfort—is sacrificed in an act that is half performance, half reckoning. The gesture is deliberate: to destroy the illusion of domestic security, to denounce the hypocrisy of a world that venerates childhood while sowing fear and obedience in every game, every story, every glance.
Killing Teddy Bears asks for no permission and seeks no compassion. It is an uncomfortable scene that points the finger: you too learned to love, to possess, and to destroy. It is a reminder that growing up inevitably means betraying who we once were. And that sometimes you have to kill a teddy bear to start looking yourself in the eye.