AGRIGENTO

HOME MUSEUM ABOUT MEDITERRANIAN PLAY AND TOY "Toli Tolì"

VIA Crispi, 34 TEL. 0922401442 VISIT ON DEMAND VISITING HOURS: Mon - Wed - Fri: 4,30 pm - 7,00 pm FREE ADMISSION

The game and toy museum was born in December 1996. In its rooms we can see and touch toys that cannot anymore be found in shops, or that they have never been there. It is divided in three sections. Each of them has paintings to illustrate the various games and toys.
The first section is dedicated to the uncovered treasures or plays from the nothing this is the Sicilian section, the second is dedicated to the African toy and the third section is dedicated to the epoch games, which goes from Thirties to Sixties.The first section contains pieces of wood, iron wires, elastics, stones, materials found in streets, in those places where children were used to pass their time. These tools made with these materials have the sense in the discovery, in the invention, in the conquer of a cultural level different from the stones'. They are the sign of the possibility to grow, the beginning of the adventure. It is the psycological meaning that is inside (I need something and I make it by myself), very different from ours (I need something and I buy it), the same that gave us the possibility to go out from the caves. But if market is comfortable comfort is atrophying and man who doesn't build anything goes backward, towards that shadow-reign from which he was able to go out making a point in a stick. The second section, "African games" gives messages and positive aspects of that realty.
The exposition of these toys wants to be a contribution in order to begin, compare and have an exchange between African children culture and Italian children's.
The section is composed by toys built by children because of the lackness of shops.
Let our children touch and see toys built by African children to stimulate creativity and manuality. It is also possible to notice a similarity between poor Sicilian toy and the African one.
The third section, "Epoch games", contains dolls from Thirties to Sixties, and tin games, from Twenties to Fifties, ordered to have a historic way to witness tendencies, events and inventions.