AAAAEEEEIIIIOOOOUUUU: アストラル人形//ASTRAL DOLL//YOSHIDA RYO

"And then I take my dolls along with me in my further search for a world of fantasy in the act of photographing them. The instant that I get a glimpse of the fantasy of involving them in a playful story, giving my dolls another dimension of life, is the time when I experience an additional new ecstasy.

In the midst of this fantasy, my dolls are easily dissected and displayed. Sometimes they are thrown out into the snow, sometimes they are baptized in flame, sometimes they become dress-up dolls, sometimes their sleeping form is gazed upon, and sometimes they are stripped to reveal their challenging naked forms. These dolls that are devoid of emotion take on various expressions under circumstances such as these. It may be due to the very fact that they are expressionless that they become mirrors that reflect the heart s of people who view them. This life force is stressed even further in dissection play with these articulated dolls."

– Ryo Yoshida, "Dissection Play" from Articulated Doll

I was in San Francisco two days ago, at the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Japantown, when I saw this small photo book "Astral Doll"

http://www.amazon.com/Astral-Doll-Ryo-Yoshida/dp/4757208650

I picked it up and started to page through it – the photographs contained were of articulated dolls by an artist named Ryo Yoshida. Below are the pictures I managed to take of the book before my cell phone died.