Pictures of Hiroko Igeta’s workshop

Afgelopen Last week Japanese puppet artist Hiroko Igeta was invited by Ulrike Quade Company to give a workshop. For two days, theatre professionals and local residents of Amsterdam-West each worked on creating a unique hand puppet of their own portrait. Which stories do we give our own faces? What does it mean to see and be seen?

Hiroko Igeta

Hiroko Igeta (1967, Tokyo) learned more about the art of making puppets before she finished her studies at the Musashino Art University. After finishing her studies she continued to develop her knowledge and techniques on how to create sculptures and ball joint puppets, and worked with sustainable materials like papier-mâché, paulownia powder, starch, animal glue, and ceramics. By focusing on the subject and object of the ‘seeing and being seen’ of the body, Igeta has made her life’s work out of modeling ‘portrait dolls’ of people she encounters in real life. Her introduction to Butoh deepened her interest in physical expression and performance, and to this day, she has a broad work practice delivering work for films and stages. In addition to various other exhibitions, her work has been presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo as part of the ‘Dolls of INNOCENCE Ball-jointed Doll Exhibition’.

Orito

For Ulrike Quade Company, Hiroko Igeta recently created the puppet for the upcoming production ‘Orito’.