Building Puppets in a Fucked up World

In a disoriented present, where language falters and technology spreads unchecked, Ilaria Commisso builds puppets. A simple, almost disarming gesture that reveals itself to be full of meaning: an act of resistance, a form of care, a space of freedom. “Building Puppets in a Fucked up World” is the exhibition opened in July 2025 at the Puppet Museum of Bergamo, exploring Figure Theatre as a living, artisanal, deeply human practice. Commisso’s figures — imperfect, layered, restless — inhabit the cracks of reality with radical authenticity. They are animated bodies that do not seek perfection but the truth of imperfection, the crooked beauty of matter that speaks. Curated by Luca Loglio, the exhibition unfolds across five thematic islands, thresholds between the visible and the invisible, where each puppet becomes a narrative microcosm.
This leporello gathers images, words, and reflections that accompany the artist’s creative process, revealing its poetic depth. Because even today, building puppets is a way to tell stories, to resist, to keep believing that animating the inanimate is still a necessary act.