Mannequin

While passing through the streets, in the midst of mobs, crowds, and hurried comings and goings, sometimes a glimpse of a showcase catches my eye. I suddenly slow down. I turn and look at it…

It’s only a mannequin, a lifeless mannequin…

Mannequins, eternally sentenced to living behind showcases, with their cold gaze and would-be voice, seem to echo the relations of people who, in the middle of their hasty comings and goings, suddenly stop and become utterly astonished to listen to their silence.

And perhaps they are human beings staring at us, we mannequins who have stepped out of our homeland, the mannequin workshop, cold, icy, and grimly passing by the showcases.

Mannequin is a black-and-white photographic project consisting of thirteen works developed between mannequin workshops, urban spaces, and displaced environments.

Mannequin, Iran, 2002-2003 © Tooraj Khamenehzadeh