Aside from being interested in history, storytelling and culture, I'm also very interested in the way children experience the world; everything is new, so everything is potentially interesting and odd. I have tried to rediscover this way of seeing. The starting point was using the toy as a sort of time machine, hoping it would transport me back to a more original mindset. I used to, and still do, have a very sentimental longing for something lost, a childhood innocence probably, dating back to some preschool age that I don't remember. I have read Baudelaire's essay "The Philosophy of Toys" with great interest for that same reason. Toys are for investigating, learning and understanding in a nonverbal way. And they're objects we tend to grow very attached to, even if our consumer society has taught us to always want something new and to throw things away as soon as they've lost their mystery and charm. "All Children talk to their toys; the toys become actors in the great drama of life, reduced in size by the camera obscura of their little brains".