V&A museum of childhood

Yesterday we visited the Childhood Museum as research for our group project as its exhibits coincide with our main theme of childhood memories.When thinking back to ones childhood the most prevalent memories are that of the toys owned or wanted by the individual, so we thought that this would be a perfect place at which to begin our research.

Whilst browsing through their collections of old to modern toys coming across toys that i myself had owned as a child brought back many memories.Even though me and Sarah are not far apart in age it was weird to think that she did not own the same toys that had shaped my childhood memories.

The toy that had the biggest impact to me was the big yellow teapot and funnily enough i have only recently been able to persuade my mother to dispose of it explaining that my child would never appreciate it as much as her Xbox or Wii. I cant remember the last time that i had visited this museum though i know i visited it as a child, but in my mind it does not resemble any memories i had of it, it is now much more modern in many ways i.e. layout, activities, dinning area, pre-school play area and i assume it's most recent addition sculptural works.

Upon viewing the museum located in Bethanel green East London, i did ponder over what kind of work it was that i wanted to produce/create for this group project a few ideas were

* creating toys out of paper,

* exploiting peoples fear of clowns (which usually stem from their childhood),

* mutilation of dolls,

* disused toys/abandoned toys,

after a discussion had with Sarah she so rightly pointed out to me that as i child everything and everyone around you appear to be much larger so an idea would be to exaggerate the piece producing it on a larger than life scale in order to capture the viewer into viewing the piece as if THEY were indeed the 'child'.