Although we would never want to steal the spotlight away from Pipp, in this tour we will give you a bit more information on our process, who we are, and the overall collection we are a part of.
Aruzhan š©āšØ
Hi, Iām Aruzhan, the first 50% of the group responsible for this scholarly edition. Throughout this project I was mainly responsible for capturing process, contextualising our toy within cultural discourses and theoretical frames, conducting the research and writing the articles. I enjoyed the whole process of working on this edition, regardless the initial challenges I faced with technical issues in running the processing in Agisoft Metashape. Although this part was a bit difficult, I appreciated the teamwork involved in the project, and Carolineās support in navigating the software was invaluable.
Interestingly, as a child, I did not possess My Little Pony toy, but I had a lot of girls playing with that in my friendship circles. This thing was at the back of my mind until I realized that My Little Pony is the universe involving not only the female audience, but the adult āBroniesā as well. This discovery brought us to dig deeper and research the toy from gender related perspective. And that come out as one of the personal insights from this edition - that toys are not merely entertainment tools, but a complex narrative involving diverse themes.
Caroline āļø
Hello! Iām Caroline, the other 50% of the group responsible for this scholarly edition. During this project I was mostly working on the technical parts, being in charge of capturing and modelling. You can also see my work in the Gender Tour and throughout this tour. Growing up a younger sibling, over half the toys I had access to were originally my brotherās, and this tended to involve lots of play time with Legos and Playmobil.
Although I was also given more typical āgirl toysā such as Barbies and Polly Pocket playsets, I never had a My Little Pony toy. However, this did not stop me from knowing about them and seeing all of the ads, and the curiosity brought me to join this project. Despite the countless setbacks and challenges, I am glad to have picked this toy, as it allowed me to learn more deeply about Metashape and to overcome my own mental barriers with technology.
The Collection
We hope that you will take the time to play around in the collection āToys with a voiceā, of which Pipp and the ponies are but a small part of, and stay open to this modern form of learning. Toys are such culturally significant artefacts and inform elements of faith, folklore, gender, and social norms, and their study allows us to understand and re-contextualize their role in our upbringing. Toys of other cultures also give an insight into similarities and differences between cultures and could be a tool to multicultural understanding.