Handshouse Studio Toys for Animals participants are delivering a newly designed set of toys for beloved elephants, Ruth and Emily, tomorrow! We are marking the 14th anniversary of this remarkable collaboration and want to share it with the community!
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Throughout the summer, we have been talking with teachers, educators, advisors about what we learned from our Toys for Monkeys and Trojan Horse remote projects. We are exploring the prospect of bringing this project to other institutions, as well as to other age groups of students in partnership with school teachers.
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Prototype and sketch of the Swivel Box Puzzle Feeder by Mallory DePoe
Monkeys?! Marvelous!
This is the time of year, The Toys for Elephants project class would normally be delivering a fleet of enrichment toys to Emily and Ruth, the Elephants at the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford. Circumstances this year turned out to be a little bit different. Students in the 2020 Massachusetts College of Art and Design Toys for Elephants class did not let these circumstances get them down however, they just found a slightly smaller group of clients at the zoo. The Monkeys!
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The “Rainbow Bridge” elephant enrichment toy, one of the 2019 toys designed & built by Massachusetts College of Art & Design Toys for Elephants students
10 Years of Toys for Elephants
This week each year is a special one for Handshouse Studio & the Buttonwood Park Zoo. Students from the Mass College of Art & Design Toys for Elephants class deliver unique enrichment objects they have designed & built during the course of this semester-long Handshouse Studio workshop to Emily & Ruth, Buttonwood Park Zoo’s resident elephants. This week would have marked the 10th consecutive year of designing, building & delivering enrichment objects for these elephants & their managers.
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Mae Kam and Mae Dok strolling past the Toys for Elephants group doing their daily foraging in the natural hills and streams near their home at BEES Elephant Sanctuary.
Toys for Elephants: Thailand 2020
Handshouse Studio traveled with the Toys for Elephants project to Thailand again! A group of 15 people from 5 different colleges from the US and England, traveled together to Thailand this past January to design and build both enrichment objects for Elephants, and tools for elephant keepers to improve life for elephants at BEES Elephant Sanctuary. (continue)
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