Sagar Shiriskar
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mannequin

A mannequin stands in a store window, its expression listless, dressed in a designer saree; a wedding gown; lingerie; all the while it is a symbol of a perfect body, a perfect sense of fashion, an object of envy. It is however, an inanimate being, a lifeless thing that stands still as the world passes it by.

The very fact that a mannequin resembles a human being so uncannily tells us something about what the human mind seeks to project as ‘desirable’. We create dummies fashioned after our own images, yet they fail to depict us accurately.

Often one passes by a display window of a store where an attendant is busy ‘dressing up’ a mannequin. This is when a mannequin stands devoid of any clothing, often missing an arm or two and it becomes a pitiable, vulnerable thing, sans clothing, sans dignity, sans its ‘humanity’

Exhibition & installation view | Kunstkasten/Villa Sträuli | Winterthur, Switzerland | 2019

Exhibition & installation view | Nairs Lab/Fundaziun Nairs | Scuol, Switzerland | 2021