LAURIE SIMMONS – KIGURUMI, DOLLERS AND HOW WE SEE
2014-04-21The first two photos from a new series titled How We See also steal from an anime convention of painting real eyes on closed eyelids. Two fashion models (a blonde and a red head) were made up to resemble ‘Doll Girls’ – young women who surgically enhance themselves to look like Barbies. Like the Mona Lisa their painted on gaze appears to follow you wherever you move. All of the characters in Kigurumi, Dollers and How We See have been photographed in a tiny abandoned brick house in Connecticut. The family that lived there painted the rooms exotic colors and made little drawings on the wall, creating a space that feels like an overgrown version of the dollhouses I’ve used in the past.
“After several years of working with lifelike latex dolls, (The Love Doll Days/ Days 1-36) I finally became comfortable working in a human scale environment. As I searched for my next subject I stumbled upon a sub-genre of Japanese cosplay called Kigurumi. Cosplay, short for “costume play,” is a performance art in which participants wear costumes to represent a specific character or idea and often interact in groups to create a subculture based on role-play. This subset includes doll-like characters who dress up in Kigurumi masks and bodysuits. (The bodysuit is known in Japan as a ‘zentai’ or skin suit – a spandex “onesie’ that covers the whole body including the face, hands and feet.) Also known as “Dollers” or “Kiggers,” they go out publicly in their costumes, sometimes as paid entertainers at public events but more often to just “be” in their characters. Dollers frequently flip gender – with men dressed as females though there are girl Dollers and girls dressed as boys, stuffed animals and cartoon characters.
Dollers can become closely bonded with their Kigurumi identities and often feel more at home in their costume personas than their “real” selves. It can be difficult to see out of the masks’ eyeholes so the characters are sometimes led around by the hand making them seem even more fragile and vulnerable.
Opposite – How We See/Look 1/Julia, 2014
Exhibition runs through to April 26th, 2014
Salon 94 Bowery
243 Bowery
Lower East Side
New York
10002
