LIVING PORTRAITS





This is indeed life itself!

Edgar Allan Poe
«The Oval Portrait»


Po_otoreto (from the Japanese pootoreeto -portrait) is a project dedicated to the creation of living portraits: small articulated figures that reinterpret the physical and psychological identity of a person. Each doll-portrait is a unique piece, entirely handmade.

The project takes and resignifies both the European tradition of portraiture and the logic of psychoanalysis; and, from Japan, the animist belief, craft practices and the creation of dolls for the adult world. At the same time, it is proposed as an artistic reinterpretation of the self, through the gestation of the dolls and the interaction between dolls and portrayed, thus actively linking creator, portrait and portrayed in a joint creative action.

Po_otoreto thus investigates the link between humans and dolls, both from the role of the creator - craft techniques, relationship between maker and doll, marketing circuits - and the user - traditional and contemporary uses, affective relationship with the doll, joint sociability, accessories and creative customization over time.

Po_otoretos are ambiguous objects that dissolve historically opposed distinctions in the West, such as art-craft, matter-spirit, object-subject, past-present, thus generating new means of creation.