A while back, UK-based writer and photographer Fred Forse spent time in Almonte photographing some of Noreen’s well-known caricature puppets together with their human doppelgangers. He’s assembled those photos in the book ‘Puppet Town’, which he describes like this:
“A small Canadian town called Almonte (population: 4,752) has a 30-year tradition of making lookalike puppets of its residents; today there are more than fifty of these uncanny, latex homunculi, displayed strategically around town in shop windows, behind cash registers and on mantelpieces in private homes.
“Puppet Town documents this tradition with a selection of portraits of Almonte townsfolk alongside their puppet lookalikes, accompanied by interviews. Together, they form an oral history that traces the origins of the lookalike puppets, why they’re desirable and how, over time, they grew into a local phenomenon.”
The book is available for order here: https://www.blurb.ca/b/10383185-puppet-town
