Juguetes

When Jaime Jimenez was nine years old, in 1987, his family moved to Washington Heights from the Dominican Republic.  He went on to earn a BFA in Graphic Design and to minor in photography at the School of Visual Arts.  He remained in the neighborhood and started his own family.

One day, his nine-year-old son, playing with a new GameBoy he'd received as a gift, asked Jaime which GameBoy games he'd played with as a child.  The father explained that he'd never owned one and that, like most kids in the Dominican Republic, he had made his own toys.  The thought of his deprivation depressed the son so much that he began to cry.  Jaime, eager to correct his son's misimpression, quickly improvised some toys on the spot.

Inspired by the incident Jimenez embarked on a project to the Dominican Republic to photographically document the dying tradition of improvised handmade toys so familiar to him from his youth.  The resulting pictures have been collected into an exhibit and into a book entitled Juguetes.  There are tops, kites, dolls, scooters,yoyos and checkers, all made by kids from whatever is at hand.  Although these children are poor every picture shows them focused and happy.

Jaime Jimenez has told reporters that now that his son has seen how much fun kids can create on their own he sometimes puts down his GameBoy and picks up a milk carton and a pair of scissors to see what he can come up with.