A Toy Story
The collection of toys that is at the heart of my project, “A Toy Story,” was assembled during and after World War II for a good friend by his generous parents. I wanted to photograph the collection both because of how worn the objects are, showing seventy years of love and play, and also because of toys’ ability to evoke subtexts of time, memory, and identity.
These toys are a good reflection of the times when they were created. They remind us that one function of toys is to relate to social and cultural forces of their times. Guns reference cowboy movies and World War II in much the same way video games now relate to drone warfare. Toy trucks and other forms of transportation show that interstate highways were just then being constructed (and also were fascinating to my friend because his father was in the trucking business), where today a child might have toy airplanes and race cars.
Does playing with toys help children develop their ideas about their future roles in the adult world?
Do they foster creativity in that children construct narratives about them or by using them?
With them, can children develop ideas about their own future identities?
Whatever their other powers, toys invoke nostalgia for our own childhood, whatever age we are.
