At the exhibition “Toy: A Journey into Dreams”, which explores the relationship of toys with dreams and with the history of civilisation and which is open to visitors at “Metreküp Bodrum” in the Midtown Shopping and Living Centre until 30 June, the poet and writer Sunay Akın, founder of the Istanbul Toy Museum, took children on an enjoyable tour of the world of toys. Akın told the toy-loving children the stories of the toys in the exhibition, which date from the 1800s to the present day and are each a witness of their own time.

Akın said that the exhibition “Toy: A Journey into Dreams” also includes toys from the 1830s, and continued: “Many of the toys you see here, in fact almost all of them, had never come to our country. In their own time they were made in very small numbers, and those that were made got broken or fell apart, and only a few collectors kept them in good condition. And those collectors are abroad. I went to these people as if I were going to ask for their daughter’s hand in marriage, bought the toys and brought them to my country. In our museum you can see toys from the 1830s and 1840s. Examples of toys from the 1850s and 1860s are also on display in our exhibition.”

Created from the toy collection of Sunay Akın, founder of the Istanbul Toy Museum,

the exhibition “Toy: A Journey into Dreams” brings together the most valuable pieces in the history of toys and offers its visitors the light of enlightenment and civilisation. With this unique toy collection, the Istanbul Toy Museum is a witness to the history of dreams that became reality, and through the history of toys it presents the most concrete examples of how people reached reality by following the footprints of dreams.

The collection of more than 200 antique toys, including toys never exhibited anywhere before, can be seen in Bodrum for the first time until 30 June at Metreküp Bodrum, one of the most striking spaces in Bodrum with its 14-metre height and spiral architecture, with the Midtown Shopping and Living Centre as main sponsor.