Joyce Dallal
When I started the Other Toy Story project in 2010, I wanted to see if I could use art to help solve a real-world problem. That problem was that it was incredibly hard to recycle toys. I learned this when I tried to get rid of bags of toys that my son had grown out of. I couldn’t give them away, nobody wanted them; I couldn’t take them to the thrift store, they weren’t accepting any more toys; I couldn’t recycle them since most were made of mixed materials. I had stumbled on what seemed like an environmental disaster. So, I thought up the Receptacle, essentially a huge trash can in the shape of a baby, who would ‘eat’ the toys that would otherwise end up in a landfill.
Flash forward 6 years, and the project has travelled to many venues, gobbling up toys as it goes. At each exhibition, there is a used and broken toy collection and the toys are ‘fed’ to the Receptacle (aka the Baby) through a trap door in its head. Once filled, it is a monument to an American childhood, depicting what we are literally feeding our children both physically and culturally.
I have seen some advances since 2010: It is easier to recycle mixed plastics, though still not very accessible to the general public. Thrift stores have devised a way of scanning toys so they can prevent those recalled for containing toxic materials from being resold. But, it is still really hard to get rid of all 600 pounds of toys that the Baby holds in a sustainable manner.
So, I would very much like to see multiple HUGE Receptacles in shopping malls across the nation. Each would be sponsored by a toy manufacturer in a campaign to take responsibility for the products they put into the market; and providing a fun and easy way for consumers to responsibly dispose of used toys. At each mall, people could drop off toys while shopping (easy!) The toys could be sorted into ones that are still in good shape and can be donated, and those that are ‘baby food’ to be fed to the Receptacle. Once full it becomes a permanent work of public art, a snapshot of the childhood culture of the local community at a particular point in time. Periodically, as options for recycling expand, the sculpture can be emptied and the process started again.
Flash forward 6 years, and the project has travelled to many venues, gobbling up toys as it goes. At each exhibition, there is a used and broken toy collection and the toys are ‘fed’ to the Receptacle (aka the Baby) through a trap door in its head. Once filled, it is a monument to an American childhood, depicting what we are literally feeding our children both physically and culturally.
I have seen some advances since 2010: It is easier to recycle mixed plastics, though still not very accessible to the general public. Thrift stores have devised a way of scanning toys so they can prevent those recalled for containing toxic materials from being resold. But, it is still really hard to get rid of all 600 pounds of toys that the Baby holds in a sustainable manner.
So, I would very much like to see multiple HUGE Receptacles in shopping malls across the nation. Each would be sponsored by a toy manufacturer in a campaign to take responsibility for the products they put into the market; and providing a fun and easy way for consumers to responsibly dispose of used toys. At each mall, people could drop off toys while shopping (easy!) The toys could be sorted into ones that are still in good shape and can be donated, and those that are ‘baby food’ to be fed to the Receptacle. Once full it becomes a permanent work of public art, a snapshot of the childhood culture of the local community at a particular point in time. Periodically, as options for recycling expand, the sculpture can be emptied and the process started again.
Joyce Dallal works with themes of collective and personal history, community, memory, and the evolution of contemporary cultural identity. She is interested in the intersection of the personal and the political. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and is the recipient of several grants and fellowships, among them an NEA Regional Arts Fellowship in Photography, a Brody Arts Fellowship, and a City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship. Her public art projects can be seen in several sites around Los Angeles. She received her MFA from USC and is a professor at El Camino College in Southern California.
www.OtherToyStory.com
www.JoyceDallal.com
The Other Toy Story on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/The-Other-Toy-Story-163348307062617/
www.OtherToyStory.com
www.JoyceDallal.com
The Other Toy Story on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/The-Other-Toy-Story-163348307062617/