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Play Time

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It’s not particularly common to view toys as a form of art, but that is something the Toy Academy Macau Art Toy Fest is hoping to change.   
 
The second edition of the festival was held in late November at Macau Tower, featuring over 30 art toy designers from around the world including Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Spain, Scotland, China, Hong Kong and Macau, with creations ranging from cute soft plushies to scary resin monsters.  But what exactly are Art Toys?
 
“All of these pieces are handmade, and rather than just painting on a canvas, these artists are creating their own canvases first and then painting over the top, so it’s a whole other level of skill and difficulty,” explains Filipe Wong (aka F.E.W) who co-curated the festival together with fellow Art Toy enthusiast, Anny Chong. 
 
“Many people have different opinions about what art is, but in the case of Art Toys, they have the style of commercial intellectual property products from big manufacturers like Hasbro and Mattel, and then using that template the artists create an artistic idea to express their identities or tell their stories,” he adds. 
 
The event was organised by Macau City Visual Arts Society, who explain that toys can also be art because “they are messengers of imagination, stories and emotions.”  The pieces on display at Macau Art Toy Fest were an eclectic fusion of pop culture, street culture and even traditional indigenous culture, with a strong emphasis on artists from Asia and Latin America, partly due to F.E.W’s family heritage – his father is from Hong Kong and his mother is Chinese-Costa Rican.
 
“Latin America has a rich culture of arts and crafts and the artists there have lots of ideas, but Art Toys are still not a very mainstream thing and the artists don’t have a lot of resources or access to materials. Meanwhile, in Asia there are lots of resources, particularly in China, so we want to bring them together,” says F.E.W. who also points out the strong connection to street culture. 
 
“Art Toys are very closely related to street culture, hip hop and graffiti because it’s about how we use our creativity to push our style and tell our stories. There are no rules and it’s a constant hustle to find materials and ideas and to express our culture and identity.”
 
Sometimes those stories are simply fun and playful, but other times they have deeper level of social commentary. 
 
“Some of these Art Toys may look grotesque, dumb or even offensive, but they are communicating an ironic message about the nature of capitalism or consumerism, expressed in the format of a commercial toy,” F.E.W. explains.
 
Appearing in the form of toys also makes the artwork very accessible and can create a real sense of nostalgia for the audience.  Artist Hombre Bala for example, makes figures inspired by the 1980’s He-Man Masters of the Universe toys, even packed in plastic blisters with authentic graphic design elements, just as the original toys did. 
 
“Art Toys are an alternative way of experiencing art, and you may see many works that bring back memories from pop culture and your childhood, so there’s an emotional connection,” notes F.E.W. “But then as adults we have different perceptions of life, and so we question how to connect our current ideas with the memories of how these toys made us feel when we were young.  That’s the charm of Art Toys, connecting ‘what I was with what I am.’”
 
The festival included a number of artists from Macau including Mr. K, MCZ Thomas and ND Others.   
 
“Art Toys are still a very niche area here, so that’s the point of this exhibition, to show people the potential of what can be done.”
 
The curator explains that Mr. K’s pieces are inspired by Kaiju style – Japanese horror monsters – using Sofubi, a traditional Japanese process of making soft vinyl. 
 
For real enthusiasts, this year’s event also included an Art Toy making workshop and an Art Toy creation competition for local talents. 
 
“It’s very exciting to bring all this work in to one place and to have a platform to express our identity from different perspectives,” says F.E.W.  “We really want to show the potential of these artists, and create a cultural exchange between Macau and other countries.”  
 
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