Creative toys
1 World, 10 Toys and 1000 combinations
Which are the toys that children still use in the streets, squares, and backyards across the world? This is the starting question that helps the authors (Roberto Papetti - with nick name Mastro Nocciola - and Gianfranco Zavalloni) of the collection to design it.
The collection has educational purpose, enlightening memories of the past and talks about the toys cross cultural diversity - a tribute to the toy-makers of different cultures. By this way it's possible to discover an invisible thread that easily links all children of five continents.
So, it is possible to talk about a Planetary Play Culture. Practically, the authors have said: If you like to be Global ask yourself, your children or children of your local area to tell about their childhood through the toys and games they played.
We are talking about toys that most children of this planet still enjoy playing with, and that they have made out of scrap or natural materials, using basic technologies. Toys of different traditional and popular cultures and heritages, already studied by the most influential researches like Huizinga, Winnicott, Piaget, Erikson, Perempruner, getting to the very bottom of the playing activities with or without toys.
From this perspective Creative Toys becomes a useful tool to educate a the Global Citizenship. But its main aim remains to carry out childhood issue. The attempt is to avoid the disappearing of contexts and situations in which children can exert their genuine childhood: be and live their years just for what they are.
The fact that these 10 Toys on display - plus their 1000 Combination and variations - are widely representing what is spread around the world means that children have selected and chosen amongst many other toys. Children are might be not fully aware but surely naturally more sensitive than adults. So by choosing these toys they are supporting their own development - in term of essential functions
and useful skills for the children's growing up process.
Definitely, there's also a different children's approach that marks handmade toys and toys which are bought. Mostly, the first category is the result of a local and community relationship, making good use of wasted resources and using their hands as main tools, passing on ideas within the spontaneous groups.
Back to the collection, the ten most played handmade toys, each one of them represented with multiple variations (expressing cultural diversity, innovation and development amplified by children), are giving visitors thousands possibilities to play with them. So, added to these ten toys there are hundreds and more playthings available - to which visitors can respectfully play with and have fun. The collection is accompanied by an Italian book: "Bambini Barattoli Giocattoli".
In the book there are plenty of little stories. All of them are focused on disappearing childhood: what were the children's spontaneous activities in Italian contexts such as streets, squares and backyards?During time, the book has changed: it has a new title (Creative toys), some new contents (the stories have been substitute with new toy-making instructions) and is collecting many black and white remarkable illustrations of Vittorio Belli. Joined to these resources there will be the opportunity to meet the authors and learn how to make some of these handmade toys.
The title Creative Toys perfectly matches with the idea that a few basic elements can be combined to obtain endless variations. More importantly children derive pleasure not just from acquiring toys but sharing the experience of making them together. This benefit far outweighs the experience of going into a shop and buying a commercial, mass-produced toy.