Brighton Toy And Model Museum is Well MET

Brighton Toy and Model Museum isn’t just a repository for old toys. The idea that museums are just a place for old stuff to collect dust should be consigned to the museum! Today museums all around the world are thinking of new ways in which to connect with the communities which they represent. Museums aren’t just a collection of other people’s antiques, they contain objects of our history; relics that are part of the culture to which we all belong.

I always loved museums, that’s why I work in one now. But there are other people who felt that going to a museum was almost a form of punishment when they were at school and consequently they wouldn’t willingly set foot inside one now. And that’s an attitude which is up to all of us as museum workers to try and change. A trip to the museum should be not only educational, but fun, entertaining and informative; a treat that everyone can look forward to. Museums used to be like libraries, you had to hush, look hard at exhibits which were often poorly displayed in badly lit cabinets, and NO TOUCHING!

Brighton Toy and Model Museum has always striven to dispel this image of reliquary. Toys are made to be fun, and while we can’t let everybody play with all the models we have, we do have interactive toys and machines, and during school visits children can play with some of the toys we keep as resources. We use that play to teach about several key stage subjects, such as the science and technology involved in construction, motion and propulsion. We don’t just exhibit old toys to conjure up memories. We also get involved in educational programmes such as Brighton Science Fest, where all kinds of learning is cleverly disguised as play! During SciFest kids thought they were playing making balloon powered race cars out of recyclable odds and ends and moving images from zoetropes. In fact they were learning about planning, strategy, construction, friction and drag, stored energy, optics and the persistence of vision.

It’s not just the young learners who we want to get more out of our museum. We want older children and young adults to think of the Toy Museum as something that they can get involved with too. This year we’re taking on work experience staff members so they can get a feel of the way a tourist attraction is run as a business, and exhibiting work by Brighton MET College art students. We are looking forward to providing space for artists from Brighton MET to exhibit their work as we feel this is a brilliant opportunity for artists to display their work in front of an audience made up not only of their peers, but of the general public who might not usually make it to exhibitions held on the college premises.

And we’re very excited about the Community Rail Partnership we’ve signed with Govia Thameslink as it will enable us to promote the exhibitions, such as those we’re working on with Brighton MET, to commuters, visitors, and all those who pass through Brighton Station. The Community Rail Partnership will mean that we can put up posters promoting the events which we are hosting, on the station concourse. We will also be able to provide two display cabinets in the booking office so people will have the chance to have a taste of our locally themed exhibits while they wait to buy their train tickets.

Ray Harryhauseun, The Man Who Brought Gods to Life

Many kids my age, 44 next month, will remember sitting and watching with awe the monsters, gods and titans created by Ray Harryhausen. The sixties, seventies and eighties were a golden age of stop motion animation, and most of that was driven by the films that Harryhausen worked on.

And you’ll be astonished by the range of movies that feature his work. Of course there are the Greek epics that everyone will be familiar with, Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts, and the Sinbad movies. These features brought a whole new dimension to the Swords and Sandals genre. No more would you have Roger Moore galloping around scrubby bits of Italy, France and Yugoslavia clumsily yet successfully flirting with the Sabine Women. Now the Heroes would do battle with unimaginable beasts, skeletons that have grown from dragons teeth and great bronze statues brought magically to life.

Harryhausen started working on blending animation and live action in the 1940s with the Mighty Joe Young, the story of love, deceit, and a giant gorilla. Later he would work on classics such as The Valley of Gwangi, where cowboys meet dinosaurs for the first time and try to put them into a Mexican circus, then the sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; The Mysterious Island in which escaped prisoners of the American Civil War find themselves on the eponymous island fighting against internal divisions, prejudice, and fearsome freaks of nature, including a giant bees, crabs and a chicken.

Not only did Harryhausen create these fabulous puppets, he also painted many of the mattes and backdrops which make the films that he worked on so convincing. The techniques he used seem obvious today, but when you look at many of the films which feature early CGI, they are as clunky and unconvincing as any wire and foam model, if not more so (Star Wars Episode IV Special Edition, with the scenes tacked on in the 90s, I’m looking at you…) .

If you were one of those kids who used to get so excited about each new release of a Harryhausen film, you probably wouldn’t have even known his name, but you’d know the movies when you saw them. The films he worked on were so much more than simply vehicles for his outstanding, ground-breaking special effects. They were story led, and the creatures featured added to the story, they were genuine characters without being gratuitously inserted or showboating.

These films have become classics and are still enjoyed by whole families, and the techniques Harryhausen developed are being used again as CGI, although it is better than it was, still doesn’t quite match up to using models and maquettes, especially where budgets are a major consideration. These films are also being recognised as art today. Not just within the genre of film art either;  Harryhausen is enjoying an exhibition at the Tate Museum of Modern Art, where his puppets and paintings of backgrounds and mattes are being displayed until the 19th of November. Not only does it feature the props that were used in our favourite films, it also features some of his creative art. It should come as no real surprise that Harryhausen also worked in bronze, creating beautiful masterpieces in metal, as well as their on film analogues. You’ll also see the relationship from the genuine architecture of ancient cities, its representation in classical art, and how that informed his dioramas as well as the mythical menagerie which heroes, immortals and fair maidens would very frequently get squashed or eaten by.

Thanks To All Who Came To Our Christmas Playday

We here at the Toy Museum just wanted to say a big thank you to all the visitors who came along to our Christmas themed Playday last weekend.
We all had such a great time welcoming all the visitors, children and adults, who all seemed to be having a great time with the trains, making Christmas cards, snowflakes and glittery gifts, we enjoyed ourselves so much it was hard to get the last visitors to leave, but leave they must. So we hope that they will all come along to the next Playday which is scheduled for February, a time of year  when thoughts turn to love. And Spring. And warmer weather.
In the meantime, all of the staff and volunteers at the museum would like to wish all of our visitors the best of the season, a Happy New Year and most of all, that you get lots of fun toys in your stockings this Christmas!
And just to remind you that Brighton Toy and Model Museum will be close from the 23rd of december until the 26th and then again for New Year from the 28th until the second of January.