Automatonophobia is, amongst a few other things, the fear of ventriloquist dummies, and when you take a look through American photographer Matthew Rolston’s Talking Heads, your latent automatonophobia could well be triggered.

With portraits, the photographer documents the now unused and abandoned dummies that once stole the show at performances. The puppets are now all on display at the Vent Haven Museum in Kentucky.

With his series, Rolston hopes to give voice to the voiceless, once again putting the dummies back in the limelight, but not shying away from the innate creepiness that some of them exude. Gathered together in the book Talking Heads: The Vent Haven Portraits, you can take a look at some of the images below: