LOCATION: Outdoor exhibition at the Halvmånen beach MAP
For most of human time, toys have been crafted using natural materials such as wood, seeds, clay, bones or stones. With the advent of plastic, which can be moulded into infinite shapes, this process was transformed so thoroughly that plastic is currently used in more than 90% of toys produced at an industrial level.
All these durable toys, after a short period of useful life, continue to exist, ending up in landfills, incinerated or abandoned in the environment. Some find their way to the ocean where they navigate marine currents to be washed up on the world’s shores.
Between 2013 and 2019, Alfredo Blasquez carried out several projects recovering and recycling marine litter from numerous Mexican beaches on both the Pacific and the Caribbean shores. Amid tons of rubbish, toys in particular caught his attention – he imagined they could be regarded as archaeological objects from the Plastic Age. Alfredo’s son Miguel had a strong emotional reaction to the toys, inspiring Alfredo and Miguel to instill them with a new life. As well as collecting and photographing each new discovery, Blasquez made a record with an open hypothesis as to what the toys reveal about 21st-century humans.
Alfredo Blasquez is a visual artist, photographer and editor from Mexico. His work has been related to sustainability and education issues. For more than ten years he has been involved in plastic recovery and recycling initiatives in coastal communities in Mexico.
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