Skull panda x womanbeing

I fell into the blind box tunnel and didn’t know how to come up for air.

I visited the Pop Mart site and was drawn to Skull Panda more than the Labubu Monsters. Skull Panda is a brand of collectible art toy figurines created by designer Xiong Mao and released by Pop Mart. The brand character is different from the ones like Molly or the crybabies in the sense that it has a darkness to it that makes the characters more complex and layered.

I chose the Image of Reality Series because the figurines or the dolls explain the complexities of womanbeing that is difficult to capture in words. So, here are the characters and my own interpretation of each. These are not the official descriptions but my own take of each character’s story.

The Pivot

She sits on a swing and contemplates turning her life around, resolute and stubborn. We know she has made up her mind but something in the way her lips purse tells us she’s caught in between two ideas. This figure contains a magnetic face cover so that she can’t be read.

The Philosophy

Half-owl and half-human, she has this defiant look while reading about the mysteries of life.

The Disguise

She is us in the way we always put our mask on whenever we are threatened. The mask is a man’s face and it is magnetic and attaches to her face easily.

The Imagination

She has the power to see things in different perspectives and has the magical ability to recreate worlds as she wishes. The figurine is turned sideways and he’s looking at reality from a different angle.

The Constraint

She is proof of how society puts us in a cage and it’s up to us to defy our limitations to become our best selves. The constraint can be our environment, how we were raised, how other people see us, how we see ourselves, and a whole myriad of things.

The Paradox

She is neither here nor there, forever difficult to place. She is every woman.

The Merchant

She is crafty and she is brilliant and she has her hands full. She is my second favorite in this series- very well crafted, the doll juggling balls smugly.

The Duality (White and Black)

These two figures are separate but can be attached to each other. To me, it simply means we are both light and darkness and we have to make peace with both sides of our being.

The Antigravity

Her face looks like she has no control over where she is. There are two balloons on her ear, one pushing her down, one bringing her up. But she manages to defy both and stay where she is.

The Soar

Her eyes are closed and she’s ready to travel to unknown worlds, her arms ready to fly, and her expression one of peace.

Each character is called a universal symbiont by the artist, “travelling freely between planets, defying time.” Each character “dwells in a dark, empty, and endless space.”

We have the imagination to make sense of the absurd, and we have the ability to see ourselves in characters that, at first glance, have no connection to us at all. I believe that’s the attraction of this series of Skull Panda. ‘Well done!

Love,

Tita Butch

P.S. If anyone is interested, I can place here the cards so that we can glean from them the intent of the artist. Xoxo.