SOUVENIRS D’ ENFANCE- la manufacture des automates
(Suveniri djetinjstva-manufaktura automata)
For the collection “Souvenirs d’ enfance”, she began a quest for the lost wonder-industry: the creations of automatons. An automaton is a machine which by means of mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, electric or electronic devices, is able to do acts imitating the living body. The 18th century was a period of the “new” automaton, the android with a human face. Androids, as well as antique dolls with their exquisite fabric bodies and porcelain heads and busts, formed my inspiration for this collection. What was invisible becomes visible. The mechanism hidden in the insides of the dolls is revealed; the wind-up tool becomes an accessory and yet, retains its functionality. The ceramic bust, its silhouette, is literally recreated while the ceramic necklace, meant for a different silhouette, shows little of its origins.
Nodding to our own automated society, her interpretation reverses this process: man simulates the doll. A world of surrealistic figures that move in an incredible fashion mixed with a specific female iconography: it is a woman who carries the remains of her childhood with her as rudimentary elements of her physiology.
