Transitional nostalgia : mediating memory through objects of play

This practice-led research project proposes a mode of ‘transitional nostalgia’, whereby creative works referencing toy forms mediate a desire to restore and return to the past using the tactile foundation of those objects of play. The two question that drive this research project are:
1. How can the production of creative work that references toy objects affectively connect people with their past?
2. How might creative practice interrogate the operation of nostalgia in a contemporary context through generational identity?
I have translated childhood objects of play through a combination of replica forms with an installation environment to construct a trigger that invites the viewer to look back at a significant time and place in their own lives. At the core of this project is an autobiographical motivation to explore the ability of specific toy forms and types of play objects to create a yearning for events, places and moments from my own childhood. From this autobiographical basis, I then consequently evoke these same positive retrospective emotions in a collective audience, employing my individual connection to toys to unpack broader questions about the personal and shared experience of nostalgic memory.
I argue that play objects conjure a distinctive and fluid nostalgic effect; one that opens a space between restorative and reflective nostalgia. Restorative nostalgia proposes the rebuilding of memory by filling in any gaps while reflective nostalgia is defined as dwelling in the perfect remembrance of memory connected to loss and longing. Transitional nostalgia in contrast is the same retrospective emotion in a constant state of movement back and forward between reflective and restorative nostalgia that is the unstable oscillating space that constantly constructs and transmits feelings for past events and objects. Transitional nostalgia is founded on a tactile relationship with objects, where the toy is a material reflection of a memory. Playful experimentation and testing strategies of replication, mending and translation in the studio enabled the creation of works that do not attempt to restore or return the past but instead move from the past to the present and back again through recognisable toy forms and images. This studio inquiry began with the toys of my childhood from the 1970s and 1980s, allowing the progression of work to touch on the popular culture of my generation, while also expanding my field of investigation to a broader collective experience of toys and play.