During our summer holidays in Greece, my Greek mother often took me with her to see one of her many friends. They always made me feel like a dummy since I didn’t speak Greek, except for the standard dialogue forms, which I could time after time reproduce on command. While my mother and the friend we were visiting caught up, I always inspected the house, hoping to find something awful to feed my boredom. In my experience, every house smelled of seasoned meat and mothballs; every seatback and telephone was covered with crocheted rugs. However, It was always the bedrooms that rewarded me with mystery, when suddenly out of nowhere I would find myself being stared at by a dumbfounded doll. For almost all the specimens I came across, I felt empathy: like me they were deeply frustrated by their limited expression.

 

Today I still find dolls very tragic. 'Dolls are important and increasingly misunderstood' British dolls collector Karen Staniland rightly claimed. They can do a better job at mimicking a natural smile, some can even make us believe they’re real, but in the end they always fail to pass our brain’s 'human' test because dolls are not animated but empty. However, it is the incongruence between their impeccable looks and emptiness inside that makes dolls to me so humanlike. Better to be empty (or 'open') than to show feelings is the message I often get from society. Self denial to make sure you’re still part of the group is  nonetheless very common: for years I thought I was leading an autonomous life when in reality I was like a puppet moving to the approval of others.

 

By creating a universe with dolls that are obsessed with being real I want to show how ridiculously tragic and poor life is when you’ve lost your ability to feel.