Almost too perfect? This child looks creepily puppet-like as he poses for Winkler and Noah's photographs http://puppet-show.net/home.html

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THE fast-paced world in which we live gives us little time to reflect upon the pressure we put upon children to grow up too quickly and become young adults.

Photographers Winkler and Noah have attempted to bring this issue to light with their disturbing new exhibition – The Puppet Show, now coming to the Saatchi Gallery. Scaring audiences around the world, the exhibition has been touring for almost two months and has been very successful.

The Italian-born pair, real names are Romina Raffaelli and Stefano Marini, photographed 30 children between the ages of two and eight, and using computer programming "subtly retouched" the photos to make them seem doll-like.

They say the idea came about by chance while looking through photographs taken of their granddaughter:

“She had all the typical features of a doll: a round head, blonde curls, blue eyes, tanned skin, a flowery dress.

"With their bright eyes and creepily dirt-free porcelain skin, the overall effect is spooky but certainly thought-provoking"

"In the months after taking the picture, we reflected a lot about what a photo of that kind could symbolise and, in general, about how much the media are able to manipulate children’s behaviour”

Indeed, the children in the photographs are almost too perfectly presented, with eerily wide eyes and spotless clothes. The lines on either side of the children’s mouths make them look convincingly like ventriloquist’s dolls. This portrayal is intended to make audiences consider whether we ask too much of our children in pressuring them to speak, dress and act in a certain way.

The proceeds from the exhibition and a subsequent book, also called The Puppet Show, have gone towards a school building project in Kenya.

“Helping the children of the Third World through pictures of children of the First World seemed to us a perfect way to strengthen the natural link that joins all the people of the world together” said the pair in an interview last month.

Winkler and Noah have said that their exhibition was designed to make the public think about "children who have become sons and daughters of perfection, pretense and image, manipulated by the media and the social context and are inevitably losing their naturalness".

There is evidently nothing natural about the portrayal of these children, however, with their bright eyes and creepily dirt-free porcelain skin. The overall effect is spooky but certainly thought-provoking.