How do we use toys to negotiate imagined worlds?

While intended for children, toys are nearly always imagined and designed by adults as didactic instruments, ideal types, and models for socialization. Whereas play itself is ephemeral, objects of play leave behind traces of this negotiation between adults and children’s world.

Over the years, the CCA has developed a collection of more than 300 architectural toys and games from the 19th century to the early 2000s. The impact of digital technology in the new millennium and the more recent rise of social media has substantially changed the landscape of childhood in the last 30 years. Yet many of the same anxieties, hopes, and aspirations surrounding children as stewards of the future persist across generations.

In this presentation, Amanda Zhang explores toys as world-building technologies, revealing the ideals and imaginaries of those who make, play with, and collect them.

This event is part of the Friday in the Collection series, where guests are invited to explore our collection with one keyword, and to curate a selection of objects they will present in the study room for one afternoon. Through findings, expected or not, and storytelling, they draw relationships between the objects, the audience, and their own stories and interests.

This event will be held in English and is free of charge. However, as space is limited, registration is recommended.

Amanda Zhang is an independent researcher and arts worker whose interests include education and pedagogy, material culture, and the social lives of objects. Currently part of Concordia University’s inaugural cohort of the Curatorial Studies Graduate Certificate Program, they are particularly interested in how institutions shape trajectories of knowledge production. Previously, they have contributed to research and public programming at institutions including the Madison Children’s Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK. They have been living and working in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal since 2024.