In 2021, the Toys for Monkeys project was developed as a remote-learning workshop to build on our ongoing Toys for Elephants project. These new smaller scale workshops allow students the opportunity to research, design, and create animal enrichment objects for a variety of species of monkeys living at the Buttonwood Park Zoo and Zoo New England’s Franklin Park and Stone Zoos. 

This past spring, long-time Handshouse Studio participant, Cailigh MacDonald took the helm as Project Director of the growing Toys for Animals project. Cailigh, Associate Director of Design at New England Aquarium in Boston, MA, Cailigh has been committed to keeping this urgently needed endeavor going, and growing. She invited art teacher and project alumni, Patrick Foran to bring his students of Boston Prep Academy, and Massachusetts College of Art Education Graduate, Matt Zeleznik to join the project leadership team, connecting these educators and students to the professional team of scientists and animal keepers of Zoo New England to collaborate on the creation of intricately designed objects with the goal of enhancing the lives of a few species of primates living at the Franklin Park Zoo. Students embarked on a project to give back to our community, serving some of our smallest and most distant biological neighbors, the DeBrazza, Potto and Tamarin monkeys who are living in sanctuary as true neighbors rather nearby in Boston. 

Through both remote and in person presentations with Zoo New New England’s Vice President of Animal Care, Malu Celli, and Franklin Park Zoo’s Senior Zookeeper Christina Demetrio, design discussions, field studies at the Franklin Park Zoo, and collaborative group workshop sessions, students designed user-centered objects to help enrich the lives of non-human citizens of our planet. Under Patrick Foran's guidance, these high school students worked together to build their designs to then deliver to their primate subjects to try.

It was evident the level of attention students brought to the task. They expressed great concern about how their designs might function when the object they created was left all alone inside the enclosure with the monkeys. They also took special consideration of the keepers as secondary users of the objects to be easily assembled, serviced, and cleaned. Students were seen glued to the glass at the zoo, studying the way the nimble fingers of each kind of primate moved from branch to branch, or how they foraged inside tiny crevices for seeds and fruit. 

On the bus home from their field visit, many students were already adjusting their early design drafts to better suit the needs of their clients. Participants soon learned to explore through curiosity and hands-on experimentation to execute theories. Focusing on movement and multi-sensory materials to engage the animals, their designs utilizing coconuts, tires, and PVC pipes defied simple description. As the projects transformed from abstract ideas into tangible experiences for the animals, the students couldn't help but beam with pride, knowing that their hard work was going to be put to the test in a real world environment. The monkey clients, under the careful observation of their care teams, played with the toys and evaluate the many successful designs. Sometimes their primate users employed the objects differently than planned. Testing is a big part of the learning process with some toys needing slight adjustment or re-design. Each toy is a prototype. Through testing students gain insights that help inform future toys while providing a variety of enrichment for these animal ambassadors, and further deepening the awareness that this project is all part of an ongoing dialogue between species, a design study, and a scientific experiment with much more to observe, try, and learn.

Real life, hands-on projects like Handshouse Studio’s Toys for Monkeys project give participants interdisciplinary experiences, and awareness to interests, topics, processes, and potential careers, offering access to impactful ways one can contribute to their communities and be future advocates. While designing and building objects to enrich the lives of animals in their local zoos, students engage in materials processes, professional design/build relationships, and relevant environmental discussions about human impact, our responsibility to others, and to our shared planet. Participants experience their efforts positively influencing the lives of real beings, and are encouraged to become more aware, proactive, and inventive caretakers and stewards of our shared world.

The Toys for Animals project has more workshops in the plans and the needs it serves seems to only keep growing. This unique Handshouse collaboration effectively enriches the lives of many species, both human and non-human, who are living together in a shared home at a complex time.

If you would like to help make this project possible, please consider donating to The Handshouse Studio Scholarship Fund so we can make access these workshop accessible to more participants. 

Whether remote or in person, Handshouse will continue working to bring innovative hands-on projects that illuminate history, explore science, and perpetuate the arts to our schools and communities. And find ways to share them with you!