Sex dolls — sometimes called love dolls — often transcend their function as toys. They’ve been used to spark not just physical but also mental and emotional responses in human beings.
In his project “Still Lives: Eva,” New York-based visual artist June Korea explores loneliness and other emotions through a series of photographs featuring a female sex doll. Korea has been photographing dolls since 2001, a pursuit driven by his personal feelings of loneliness. He often finds himself meditating on the ephemerality of life and happiness, he told HuffPost Korea.
“It would be impossible to live forever if you’re human, but dolls will never go anywhere. So I thought about giving the gift of life and identity to dolls,” the artist explained.
For years, Korea produced images with abandoned dolls, marionette dolls and ball-jointed dolls as subjects. But his desire to explore such themes as loneliness and relationships motivated a search for “dolls that were designed to resemble humans as accurately as possible,” he said. He did some research on various models and finally ordered a sex doll from Japan, which he carefully customized online with his photography project in mind.
After meeting her for the first time ― in a FedEx box ― he decided to name the doll Eva. “The name is a combination of forever, representing eternity and Eve, humanity’s first woman,” Korea said. In the photo essay, Korea and Eva share a meal, go shopping and go for walks. In different images across the collection, the doll appears to be lonely, vulnerable, pensive and even disappointed.
““These photographs are like a mirror that reflects who I am.”
- June Korea
Korea says that the emotions he was able to curate in this essay were drawn from personal encounters. “Most of the scenes are from my own memories and experiences,” he explained. “These photographs are like a mirror that reflects who I am.”
Korea plans to continue to photograph Eva. “I think of this as a lifelong project, but I still haven’t decided how the story will end,” he says. But he already anticipates that he will face a few challenges. “As time passes, I will grow older, but Eva will not,” he noted.
“I expect that the story will portray this process and the feelings of estrangement, alienation, loneliness and other various emotions that may follow,” Korea concluded. “Could the ultimate ending be death, a breakup or a happy ending?”
Scroll down for more images of Korea’s “Eva.”
This piece originally appeared on HuffPost Korea and has been translated into English.
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