Interview with Matt Jowett From Toy To The World

Matt Jowett is the mastermind, creator and main man behind the Toy To The World Project. The exhibition and auction kicked off earlier this Midsumma (see the review and opening night photos here) and with only a little bit of time left to bid on the amazing designer bears on the Facebook Auction, we had a chat to Matt about the project. +mar: What is Toy To The World? mj: TTTW Project is two parts custom toy design show, three parts charity fundraiser, one part something that I always struggle to sum up in a short sentence. It’s a lot of creative people pulling together, having some creative fun and expression and something charitable and good comes out of it all. +mar: This is a huge exhibition that brings together a lot of artists, tell me a little bit about your role in bringing this exhibition together. mj: Essentially the project is an art exhibition and benefit auction. But it has grown year after year and is a major exercise in logistics and communication. We’ve had anywhere between 60 and 110 artists involved in each project, I spear head the whole project from sourcing funding and sponsorship, to registering artists through to curating the exhibition right through to administering the auction. It’s a 7 month process from the drawing board to handing the cheque over to the charity, that involves constant communication with supporters and artists, it takes a lot of time and work but the end result is always so rewarding. Seeing all the artists’ different styles come to life, discovering new things about the artworks, hearing from people which one is their favourite and why +mar: Tell me a little bit about your background, how long have you been running TTTW? mj: My background… (pause) hmmm. It’s a mixed bag of graphic design, illustration and event management. As a kid every Christmas I only ever wanted a new 72 pack of Derwents, I’d go through them so fast I was always sketching characters and cartoons, I’m totally a nerd and somewhere along the way developed a taste for acquiring custom vinyl toys. Fast forward to my post high school studies and I found myself studying event management and in need of a concept for an event to put together for an assessment. Long story short a custom designer toy show was the result. Initially the idea was somewhat different to what is has become over the last 4 years and from what it might become from here. +mar: How many artists have submitted this year? mj: There are 83 individual entries currently in the auction, some artists created a couple of submissions so I think there are about 75 individual artists, from all around the country and a couple from around the wider world. +mar: What are some of the biggest issues with trying to organize so many artists? mj: There are always challenges in any project regardless of scale and problem solving is one of the things that is oddly enjoyable about the role of organising events. Over the years I’ve began to refine the ways I carry out my admin to streamline everything as much as I can, one of the biggest issues is simply time, I’ve had a bit more help this year with an intern Joe helping source artists and get the word out to everyone, communication is really the key to most of the challenges of such a broad show. With 70 artists in a show each artist has questions, and you want to engage all the artists who are giving their time and their talent to the project, you are donating their works to a cause, and it’s difficult to get all the information to everyone and to give support to all those who are supporting the project. One of the things you’ll see on our Facebook page that we’re trying to do in the auction this year is to post about each individual artist at least once just to give some recognition to everyone, again it all just takes time. +mar: Do you have a favourite bear submission this year? mj: I don’t want to play favourites but there is one or two I’d bid in the auction for, there’s a handful that have just captured my heart. +mar: Why the bear vinyl toy? Does it have any connection to the queer community terminology ‘bear’? mj: How the project actually came to be a fundraiser and to raise funds for HIV and an organisation affiliated with gay men’s health was admittedly an after thought, the project was something I wanted to do for some time, it just happened that around the time that the wheels were set in motion someone in my live was diagnosed with HIV and their struggle with that changed what the project was going to be. We’re actually really keen to get into some discussions about a new template in years to come, something uniquely TTTW, I’m not sure what that will be, maybe we will have a competition to design it! +mar: Who, or what, at the moment is your biggest inspiration? mj: I can’t say there is a muse-like thing or person that is source of inspiration that motivates me, just simple acts of kindness and charity, people donating their time or their talent. Or you know, those little acts of kindness to strangers. Altruism is totally inspiring and a most admirable quality in the world. I’ve become addicted to the site Upworthy recently, it always has something to inspire. +mar: What else are you excited about for Midsumma this year? What else are you seeing? mj: Unfortunately outside of TTTW I have to also work a paid job, in fact two, both in festivals and events and these plus the project itself has largely kept me from filling my calendar with spare time to see all the amazing goodness that usually comes with the Midsumma time of year. I’m really shattered, I got down to 1 Spring St for the opening of the “Inquisitarium” group show, but there’s so much more I’d have liked to see, like the “Radicalism” and “From the Ilk” shows. +mar: What’s your next project that you are working on? mj: Well PencilNeck Productions moves from TTTW over to Future Music Festival when the auction wraps up for Feb/March, we’ll have a fair bit of post event stuff for TTTW Project to get through after FMF and then I’ll be brainstorming, looking for the next project before TTTW kicks off again I’d like to start another group show project for a different charity. Make sure you get on the charity auction and buy some/one/all of these incredible one-off, original artwork bears from some really talented designers and artists.