The ‘A Doll out of the Box’ series by Portuguese art and design duo DDiArte blurs the line between real and fake. For years girl’s toys like ‘Barbie’ have informed and reinforced standards of female beauty. Many academics, feminists and social critics have pointed out that these standards are so impossibly unattainable that they border on fictitious.
A Doll out of the Box photographs barbie-like dolls along with a model—an actual person—that adheres to these elusive standards of beauty. The likeness is uncanny. To complete the picture, DDiArte have manipulated the photographs in a such a way that the model seems to be made from plastic.
There is an unnatural quality that pervades all pieces from A Doll out of The Box; even for women who share a similar body plan to a Barbie doll, artificial augmentation is required to complete the effect.
