Lifelike dolls provide healing touch

By Cigdem Munibe Alyanak

ISTANBUL (AA) – Developed into pieces of art in the hands of sculptors, reborn dolls have an incredibly lifelike appearance, attracting collectors around the world.

People with Alzheimer's disease, women who lost their babies, or those desiring to have a baby also use reborn dolls to feel better.

The handmade art dolls are created from a blank kit or a manufactured doll and are completely transformed by an artist to resemble a human infant with as much realism as possible.

The dolls are also used on the sets of movies, TV series and in advertisements.

Becoming more widespread worldwide, the art of making reborn dolls is also being taught at Nara Fine Arts Studio in Kadikoy district in the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul.

In a six-day course, trainees learn the details regarding the making of reborn dolls, from painting to baking, followed by drawing lines and forming hair and eyebrows.

The most significant trait of reborn dolls that increases their sense of reality is transmitting the temperature of the human body by absorbing the holder's temperature and emitting it back.

With their prices ranging from $225 to $10,000, reborn dolls are regarded as works of art, a handmade collector's item rather than a doll.

Artist Elena Redneva said the term "reborn doll" comes from the fact that paint, lines and felt are used to bring the kit dolls to life.

The dolls are made of vinyl or silicone, and their realistic features can include veins, pores, tears and saliva, with some having features that imitate breathing or a beating heart.

*Writing by Dilan Pamuk in Ankara