MassArt Students Create "Toys for Elephants"

TOYS FOR ELEPHANTS

MassArt students design and build interactive objects – or "toys" - for elephants in captivity

Massachusetts College of Art & Design (MassArt) challenged students this spring to design and build cognitive tools – or "toys" -- for two beloved elephants living in captivity at New Bedford's Buttonwood Zoo.  The program, called Toys for Elephants, was designed by MassArt Professor Rick Brown in collaboration with Handshouse Studio, and is the only class of its kind in the country.  

Toys for Elephants is a one-semester elective class that draws on a range of art students’ interdisciplinary design skills to solve a real-world problem:  keeping elephants in captivity cognitively and physically stimulated. Through the collaborative venture Toys for Elephants, MassArt and Handshouse bring students together from diverse disciplines including industrial design, architectural design, art history, art education, sculpture and a range of 2D and 3D fields to learn from each other, design, build and problem-solve.  After studying the Buttonwood Zoo elephants and learning their behaviors, students design and build objects that mirror or encourage their natural activities.

The Toys for Elephants students this year designed diverse objects including "Elephant Bling" - a diamond-shaped object that contains food or other items that elephants can access; a "Drum Roll" that allows elephants to make music on xylophone-type pipes, and "Jacks" that resemble the childhood playthings that elephants can pick up, move, and create sound.  A final project called the "Tire Tendril," is a helix-shaped object made of car tires that elephants can roll and pick up.

About Massachusetts College of Art and Design

Massachusetts College of Art and Design is one of the top colleges of its kind in the United States. Founded in 1873, MassArt has a legacy of leadership as the only independent public college of art and design in the country and the nation’s first art school to grant a degree. The college offers a comprehensive range of baccalaureate and graduate degrees in art and design, all taught by world-class faculty, along with continuing education and youth programs designed to encourage individual creativity. Whether at home in Boston or on the other side of the globe, the artists and designers of MassArt are dedicated to making a difference in their communities and around the world. For more information, visit www.massart.edu.

About Handshouse Studio

Handshouse Studio was founded by Rick Brown, professor of sculpture at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Laura Brown, faculty member of the Fine Arts 3D department at MassArt (BFA Sculpture ‘93). The Handshouse mission is to investigate a single object in history – from construction, to design, to artwork - and open doors to a wide range of related subjects that are usually studied separately. Through the study of a single historical object Handshouse links the fields of history, science, mathematics, literature, arts, culture, and technology. Handshouse projects have included the construction of an Egyptian obelisk; recreating a Revolutionary War submarine, and most recently, the reconstruction of a 17^th Century Polish synagogue that will be the center-piece of the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews set to open Spring 2014.  www.handshouse.org