Life comes from loneliness, lovers, friends and family will eventually go, but sex dolls will not die. When I searched the internet for photos of silicone dolls, a group of photos by Korean travel artist June Korea caught my eye. In the group titled "Eva", the sex dolls are his imaginary friends who eat together, sleep together and play outdoors together just like real couples. Foreign media are curious about the artist's "sex doll" creations, but the photos are not erotic, but an indescribable feeling of loneliness. The video interview with June Korea was conducted one afternoon after he returned to Korea from the US to teach. The fantasy friends in his photos were also disassembled and sent back to their hometowns in several courier boxes.
His autobiography follows.
I have been photographing sex dolls since 2002. I take care of her because I feel alone.
I'm not lacking in social interaction. But when I wake up alone every day, when I walk home alone after parties and work, or when I'm in a crowd, I feel lonely. As a child I naively thought that my family and friends would never leave me and that the good memories would never go away, then I realized that in time I would definitely lose them. Going through this over and over again doesn't make me feel any better.
My girlfriend and I broke up while studying art in New York City when the idea of giving the silicone doll an identity and photographing with her as a fantasy girlfriend was born. People are gone, but silicone love dolls don't die, and while I'm documenting this in my fantasy world, it will be forever.
December 29, 2014 was the first day I received Eva. Most life size sex doll in the American market are European and American styles, and it cost me ten thousand dollars to ship from Japan. Eva, an Asian girl, 158 cm tall and 36 kg, came to my house with a FedEx box.
For two years now I have been photographing intensively with silicone dolls for company almost every day. We slept together, went shopping together and had picnics together. We laughed together, cried together, and felt happy and alone at the same time.
Passers-by stared at us with strange eyes, and some came to touch Eva, but I didn't care.
In my heart I know that this relationship is an illusion, that loneliness, being human, is always an inescapable reality. But if you need her, the Sex Dolls will always be with you and will not die.
