About 20,000 used plastic toys have taken up a whole wall of K11 Art Mall, a shopping mall in Shanghai with abundant luxury brands and artistic works on display.

At first glance one would be dazzled by the numerous colorful toys, big and small, densely affixed to the about 10-meter-long by 4-meter-tall wall at the art village of the mall. There are famous animated characters such as Barbie and Hello Kitty as well as dolls, robots, toy cars and animals, all made in China.

The myriad of old toys do not create an effect of a lovely world, instead, they are provocative, especially as some are fragmented parts that were put together again.

Taking a closer look at the wall one would find that it is the portraits that are conspicuous - the young faces of China's nameless workers who assemble or stuff the toys at factory assembly lines. Some smile in front of the camera, some look indifferent and some are taking a nap at the jumble of toys.

The installation, called The Real Toy Story, was created by Michael Wolf, a German artist and photographer who has lived in Hong Kong since 1994 and has been greatly inspired by the social and economic changes in China.

The idea of a toy installation was inspired by his son. He collected a large bag of about 600 used plastic toys from second-hand shops and local markets in America to decorate his son's room. The young child was astonished, while Wolf noticed that every single toy he had collected was made in China.

In March 2004, Wolf spent four weeks traveling through California with a van, collecting old toys from hundreds of shops and flea markets.

"My criteria was that each toy must have a face, and had to have been made in China," he says.

Magnets were attached to the 20,000 toy figures with superglue, so that they could be installed on the walls of various museums.

Meanwhile, he started expanding the project by documenting the true faces of Chinese factory workers that produce the real toys.

"I visited five toy factories in China where I photographed the workers producing the toys. These portraits are embedded in the installation, and add another level of meaning to the project," said the artist.

He says the art installation is to pay homage to the numerous nameless Chinese workers that have made about 75 percent of toys for children around the world.

The workers' facial expressions, clothing and working environment formed a sharp contrast to the toys they made, provoking a reflection on the relationship between toys and workers, factories and consumers as well as China and the world.

Wolf was born in Munich and grew up in the United States. He studied both at the University of California Berkeley and the Folkwang School in Essen in Germany with renowned photography master Otto Steinert.

His photographs explore the complex cultural identity of China, from commercial elements of this new global economy to the social and economic implications of the urban density in the city of Hong Kong.

wuni@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 02/09/2014 page9)