I love how your book festival trip became such a discovery of extraordinary objects. Your photos are indeed evocative of stories in your Dolls Alphabet. May I recommend a novel by Canadian author Margaret de Rosia called Eight Strings. It takes place in nineteenth century Venice and the eight strings refer to the art of puppetry which the Venetians developed.
Your writing is extraordinary, Camilla. I love your photographs here, too. I've noticed the way sewing machines often crop up in your stories. I didn't know about Lumiere's prosthetic hands. And the puppet museum looks like it could come from your fiction. What you say about the whole world of a puppet theatre fitting in a bag… wow. Thank you for this.
The world in which puppets engage in is indeed strange. There's an art film made by Wael Shawky called Cabaret Crusades where he uses 200-year-old marionettes to depict the story of the First Crusade from the perspective of Arab historians. The marionettes themselves are creepy because of how simultaneously lifelike and lifeless they appear, but I was more disturbed by the outfits and sets built for them to operate in. Sometimes the same doll was used for multiple characters and so fake beards or jewelry or wigs were applied to distinguish each variation. I was very much interested in finding out who made these teeny costumes. I'd recommend watching, I found it inspiring!
I love how your book festival trip became such a discovery of extraordinary objects. Your photos are indeed evocative of stories in your Dolls Alphabet. May I recommend a novel by Canadian author Margaret de Rosia called Eight Strings. It takes place in nineteenth century Venice and the eight strings refer to the art of puppetry which the Venetians developed.
Your writing is extraordinary, Camilla. I love your photographs here, too. I've noticed the way sewing machines often crop up in your stories. I didn't know about Lumiere's prosthetic hands. And the puppet museum looks like it could come from your fiction. What you say about the whole world of a puppet theatre fitting in a bag… wow. Thank you for this.
The world in which puppets engage in is indeed strange. There's an art film made by Wael Shawky called Cabaret Crusades where he uses 200-year-old marionettes to depict the story of the First Crusade from the perspective of Arab historians. The marionettes themselves are creepy because of how simultaneously lifelike and lifeless they appear, but I was more disturbed by the outfits and sets built for them to operate in. Sometimes the same doll was used for multiple characters and so fake beards or jewelry or wigs were applied to distinguish each variation. I was very much interested in finding out who made these teeny costumes. I'd recommend watching, I found it inspiring!