Toys?
The toy series follows how play evolves – from toys into ritual, ceremony, competition, work, law, politics, and identity.
Every game creates its own world: its own boundaries, its own language, its own logic. Sometimes the realities built within the boundaries of a game become so familiar that they are no longer recognized as games at all.
Homo Ludens
Medium
Oil on stretched cotton canvas, 80 × 60 cm, 2026 — Boelhe, Portugal
Research Method
Desk research grounded in Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens, combined with personal observation of how play evolves – from toys into ritual, ceremony, competition, work, law, politics, and identity.
Artist Translation
Every game creates its own world: its own boundaries, its own language, its own logic. Yet it is within play that cultures emerge. Sometimes the realities built within the boundaries of a game become so familiar that they are no longer recognized as games at all. Perhaps the most convincing games are the ones that no longer announce themselves as games – they simply began as forms of play, shaped more by chance than by rules.
This work is part of the toy series.
Doll
Description to follow.
