Exhibition "Captured heroes"

Berlin-based freelance theatre artist MADIS NURMS has designed stage productions in Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Austria, Holland, and Belgium. In addition to that, he teaches stylists and decorators at the Tartu Art School. At the gallery exhibition that complements the Toy Museum’s exhibition ‘I, SUPERHERO!’, Madis presents a creative side different from his ordinary work – a passion for capturing toys.

Madis Nurms’s interest in taking photos of toys dates back to his childhood. “During our childhood, Lego sets cost their weight in gold. However, catalogues that contained captivating staged photos were freely accessible. I scrutinised those catalogue photos with utter abandon, taking in all the characters and the exciting worlds created around them. And I did it every day, for hours,” Nurms recalls.


As a child, the children’s magazine Täheke left an everlasting impression on him by publishing amazing staged photos of Barbie and her glamorous life throughout the 1990s. According to Nurms, we mustn’t forget that the plastic beauty was at the peak of her popularity back then and actual top-level designers like Carol Spencer and Kitty Black-Perkins designed clothes for her in Mattel’s workshops. The photos published in Täheke were also fashion series honed to fine details – like the staged photo series of Vogue or Vanity Fair, but intended for a younger target group.


When the author of this exhibition got the idea to start photographing toys, he discovered a whole sub-culture of toy photographers: podcasts covering the topic, and enthusiasts who go to enviable depths when taking photos of toys. From there, he reached the very exciting Lensbaby lens with three rotating optics, without which he now couldn’t even imagine photographing. “Lensbaby is a very playful tool, it gives the photos a unique atmosphere which lenses with ideal sharpness and built-in stabilisers do not offer,” says Nurms.


The Tartu Toy Museum’s visitors can now take a closer look at this special atmosphere. The exhibition also includes a small selection of hero toys who have stepped in front of Madis Nurms’s camera and are now a part of his private collection. All the other toys he has captured can be viewed on Instagram at instagram.com/madisnurms.