The Museum of Childhood

I had a great visit to the museum of childhood this week. 

When I walked in, the 'confiscation cabinets' display immediately reminded me of my Box Clever objects! Even the style of display echoes back to how my objects looked when I did my pop-up display in college at the start of the project- it made me laugh! Pocket sized, bright, plasticy and shiny, it's easy to see how such items might become distractions at school...

Display of items confiscated from children in primary school classrooms
at the Museum of Childhood

I was really fascinated by the little handwritten notes and folded, scrawled on bits of paper in the first cabinet. It brought back memories of how me and my friends used to pass secret, funny or sweet messages to each other under the table at school as well. When I  went back home, this idea inspired another paper cut stencil for my print block. I love the way kid's notes are a big jumble of words and phrases, with some bits crossed out and no worry of whether parts are upside-down or squished in. For my stencil, I cut out a jumble of words all relating to the objects in my box, and how they make me feel in this childish style. It'll be interesting to see the effect when layered up with other stencils and printed!

close up of scrawled note from Confiscation Cabinet (MoC)

my word-based stencil for screen printing next term

I also had good fun drawing from objects in the museum's main collection, where they have toys from across the ages. Things that really interested me were the constructive toys…linking to my box of things to physically 'play' around with, this type of toy is meant to be manipulated, taken apart and reassembled. There is a feeling of excitement and opportunity, as the toy has components that the person playing gets to decide how to put together. I also really liked the plastic character toys- robots, little people, ect- they have personality and a sense of humour due to their graphicy, humanised features that make them seem alive. 

montage of some of the objects I was drawn to in the museum collection

sketching at the museum

When I was making my paper collages last week, I used the word 'hybrid' to inspire how I put my imagery together. Looking closer at objects in the museum today however, I realised lots of toys are hybrids already, especially the construction based ones I like so much! Now I am thinking that for my photoshop (CAD) print work, it will be fun to try creating hybrids of my already hybrid-objects; taking parts of my drawings and photos and playing around with digitally collaging them together to create motifs and patterns. Lets see how it goes!