Cocks from Portugal, tigers from India, games from Ghana. A precious collection of toys from around the world is visible, touchable and very soon clickable in the Horniman Museum
Zoe and Graz in the Hands on base room
How spacious do you imagine can be a room storing toys from nearly all over the world? Don’t go too far or high… we are in the Hands on Base room of the Horniman Museum, and the place is not larger than a big living room.
Here, if you nose about and let your guide show you those tiny, coloured objects that lay in the small cabinets around the space, you’ll catch the stunning, wide-ranging collection of toys that the Museum hosts for the Community.
Zoe Charmicheal is a young Education Officer who looks after the Hands on Base project, intended to make children play and learn through handling objects from different cultures and areas of the world.
“When I came the first time with my daughter I was frightened that her tiny, muscular hands could tear that frail, hand-made cyclist from Zimbabwe into pieces” I confess.
She smiles understandingly and shows me some little dolls, one from Japan and two, older, covered in fur from Greenland. “These were meant for tourists and also for kids to learn traditional skills and deal with animal skin. Our mission is to let children explore, touch, feel and make comparisons. It’s amazing. Look at these from Guatemala” she opens a very tiny box housing a series of miniature dolls “they are to be put under the pillow and are thought to let worries go away”.
Graz Ciuksa is a School Education Officer and joins us while we are looking at the African collection. “These things are a good lesson in recycling” she says “as they are constructed with such poor materials, wire, wood, plastic, rubbish…”. I find a quiet poetry in them. “Children are fascinated by these objects. They love the wheels that go round and their mechanisms..” An important lesson for our high tech world!
Besides dealing with 26 school sessions a week, the HOB team is working on a new project, Hands on line.
“It is going to be a digitalized version of what we have got here, an extra-bit of our website. There will be high quality photos of more than 100 objects to be explored.”
The oldest toy? “I don’t know if it is the oldest but it is certainly a Victorian one: the so called ‘Dutch doll’”. A naked wooden doll rests in her case. “Probably girls had to sew dresses for her” says Zoe. And that was no doubt great fun!
