We take them for granted. Mute, happy, thoughtful, watchful, dressed, distressed; we pass through their gaze without noticing.
I began photographing mannequins serially, following a chance encounter in Camden Market, London. A young woman, apparently sat strangely immobile in the middle of a busy crowd that was continually obscuring her. I like to work from what’s around me, and this seemed compelling, not least because everyone else was ignoring this enigmatic figure I now realised was a mannequin. As I began to photograph, a portrait began to suggest itself, rather than the interaction between the model and crowd. I have a background in fashion, so maybe this was a learnt reflex, but it seemed interesting.
There was no intention of making a series to start with. Nevertheless, I kept coming across these mannequins and the ideas began to coalesce. These are all mannequins that are no longer in mainstream stores (which prefer more anonymous faces now), but are found in thrift stores, street markets and antique shops, moved on to a different life. Many of these were also found across Europe, where different styles of models appeared, with different nuances. There is even a small group I have revisited for further sittings, much like old friends but less welcoming. Most have been altered, some intentionally with paint, some as a result of accidental damage, or simply by the passage or patina of time. They all share a remarkable presence when you place yourself in front of one, a physicality which increasingly directed the photographs.
Mannequins as realistic figures to display clothing are relatively modern, first appearing widely in the nineteenth century. The word itself is actually masculine, related to young men being employed to model clothing in the middle ages - including womenswear. But this is a fashion-centric timeline of mannequins. They are also related to the jointed figures that artists have used as reference for centuries, a prosaic form of sculpture. Later, they were often co-opted into the making of automata in the nineteenth century, shaped the continuing basis for robot figures in science fiction in the twentieth century, and the form of actual AI robots in the twenty-first. They are part of a human fascination for simulcra of ourselves, as if by making these figures we might be able to better understand or even remake ourselves. The film Bladerunner, that brooding exploration of the phenomological experience of androids as human consciousness, was a background touchstone for these images.
I have intentionally shot these as portraits, rather than as still-lives, street photography or documentary. The photographs are intended to raise questions about identity, portraiture and truth, the nature of beauty (male and female, young and old); I aim to unsettle. I sought to give the mannequins the same agency in their portrait that I would give a human, they are participants.
So, while they are portraits, of what is open to question. Maybe they are questions in physical form, both as subject and photograph - what you see in the image, and the image itself. What is it to be human? What does that look like? What do we look like to others? Do we look at the subject or they look at us? Is that possible? Is that possible in a picture? In the age of both social media and AI and their confluence in images - their reliance on images, how do we perceive or understand appearances? I am mindful that appearance has several meanings: the outward form or presentation of an object, figure or place; what things look like rather than what they are, often suggestive of either a particular, defined quality, or an underlying perhaps opposing reality; to become visible when not previously seen; a performance; or the fact of being present.
They are just objects, yet they pose, endure, suggest, they are silent. Perhaps more correctly, silent in sound but not in presence.
