A little update on our International Curiosity Box experiment.
After meeting people from around the world at the ADI conference in Lyon, we asked some of our new contacts to help us with something we simply can't do ourselves: look at our first selection of objects through their own cultural lens.
We've just received some lovely feedback from our contacts in Greece.
All of the objects were considered culturally appropriate, but one observation particularly interested us. The carved wooden animal has details that are more familiar within Chinese culture, yet this didn't prevent it from being considered suitable in Greece.
That's exactly the sort of thing we're hoping to explore.
We're not looking for objects that mean the same thing everywhere. We're interested in whether an object can be unfamiliar and still feel interesting, inviting and comfortable to explore.
The aim is to create a collection with different textures, weights, shapes and sensory qualities, without requiring a particular task, memory or "right" way to interact with them.
It's very early days, but we're learning already. And we're enormously grateful to the people we met in Lyon who are lending us something we don't have: their own cultural knowledge.