Like animals, dolls rarely take centre stage in my pictures, but they are key elements and dramatic „movers“, meaning that the intention of the picture is measured by the role attributed to them. In this narrative approach, I feel connected to old textual traditions such as fairy tales and myths. In the tradition of the Surrealists — exemplified by Hans Bellmer with Unica Zürn — dolls seem to represent the childlike female body as an object of sexual to pornographic fantasies, i.e. as victims. I understand them as repositories of cultural self-images (dolls in Asia versus Europe, and Africa) that provide consciousness for the reformulation of female role models. A doll as a silent agent of emancipation and change?

Maria Wirth, November 2024