When Glen and I went to Ottawa last month, we saw in the Porter in-flight magazine an ad for the “This Is Not A Toy” exhibition at the Design Exchange in Toronto. It’s been on my list of things to do since then and today we went and checked it out.
We invited Bec and Alastair along too as we’d talked about it yesterday at skiing. We set off about 1pm. It’s a beautiful blue sky day in Toronto. We can see the sun. The snow has mostly melted. So you’d think it’d be at least above zero, wouldn’t you? Not so. –11°C. Talk about biting.
We headed downtown to the Design Exchange, a gallery/museum space that’s housed in what used to be the Toronto Stock Exchange. It’s quite a cool facade from the outside, which is stuck onto a more modern building around and above it.
The exhibition features toy art, sculptures that are made to be collectable toys but aren’t designed to be played with. It’s been one of the Design Exchange’s most popular exhibitions and has confused the many kids who’ve come in because they’re not allowed to touch the toys. Not that they could anyway because the majority of them are behind perspex.
Take a look at the photos below for what was on display. The ones I really liked were the wall of Dunny toys (ha ha for Australians), and the ones made by Huck Gee. There was also a really dark toy called The Passage by Coarse, which I thought was very inspiring.
Like most of the toys that were on display, the exhibition was small, which was perfect. We spent about an hour in there before heading over the road to check out the elephant sculptures we’d seen from inside the Design Exchange. I hadn’t heard mention of these elephants in any guide book so they were a pretty cool find.
Afterwards it was coffee time. We caught the streetcar east to Broadview, then walked north to Rooster Coffee, opposite Riverdale East Park. Rooster makes flat whites, which are a hit with the Australians because hardly any coffee shop over here knows what they are, whereas they’re a staple back home.
The place was packed with people so we sat outside. It wasn’t too cold by that time and the sun gave out some mild warmth so it was really quite pleasant. Soaking up the sun, chatting with friends, being outside – it was a great afternoon.
Then we walked up to the subway station, caught the train back home and that’s been the day. Oh, we caught a bit of the St Patrick’s Day parade on Yonge St at lunchtime when we went to the Vietnamese place down the road. There were more people in the parade than watching so I admire the marchers’ fortitude, especially when it was so cold out.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?