A Night at the Museum

It is late evening. We stand in a dark, cavernous warehouse space smelling ever so faintly of the spices it once used to contain. Dissecting this black grotto tall, elegant triangular shapes like the peach-tinted sails of three dozen ships - made from muslin stretched over bamboo frame - hang motionlessly in the abyss. The central pagoda invites the eye like the sumptuous centre-piece of a tropical garden. And as far as the eye can see, on dainty plinths of various sizes and heights, stands the most bewildering assortment of what at first glance could be jewel-encrusted shrines, fantastical dolls' houses or perhaps the miniature scenes you find trapped inside clear plastic cases surrounded by water and fake miniature snowflakes. But actually what surround you are the creative responses of a new generation of people making toy theatre - some trained in fine art, theatre, puppetry, poetry or music, others trained in nothing at all. Standing alongside carefully preserved examples of original toy theatres, the total collection that presents itself to a visitor to the Great Small Works Toy Theatre Museum suggests the revival of an undeniably flexible medium offering unimaginable possibilities to the curious 21st century artist.

Each artwork illuminated on its little plinth in the spice-scented darkness of the warehouse, it is evident that using this Victorian craft tradition as a basis has given a new generation of individuals the licence to create within a whole new disciplinary framework. In these 'theatres' references to the Victorian tradition are juxtaposed with experimental twists on scale, materials, design and use of imagery. In short, the toy theatres presented here still serve exactly the same purpose as they did over a century ago - to enable the maker to create their very own self-imagined, self-designed and self-made performance realm within which to play out their dreams and vent their frustrations - with the difference being that today's toy theatre makers benefit from an endless palette of new influences from the post-modern cultural cocktail that is the world today, which they are free to add into the mix.
Some speaking of the world today, others of a bygone time, but all relying on the same theatrical portal, each of the works in this space stands out as unique.