Urban Toys: six characters based in Perú’s traffic

The WAKO “Micro” urban toy collection

ORIGINAL LIMITED EDITION SCULPTURES

The Wonderful Chaotic World of Urban WAKOS

Chaos vs. Order

Chaos is the source of order as so many archetypal myths narrate. The faithful Noah survived the divine flood and from that emerged a new order. The Star War’s New Republic descended into the bloody Clone Wars, and from that, The Evil Empire, the darkest of orders emerged in the galaxy. The cycle is a continuum that takes place in our minds and surroundings.

What are “Micros?

Peru is chaos. Is a young and chaotic Republic (which is turning 200 hundred this year), multicultural, multi-territorial, the size of Europe with 10% of the population, connected and disconnected, made of wide desserts and coast, high mountains, in deep jungles. A crafty and adventurous filmmaker could shoot a whole Star Wars saga different planets in just one country.

My country is lovely chaos, mixed, blended chaos, and because of that, a source of incredible possibility. Everything has the potential to be constructed as in many emerging economies. And as such, nothing can symbolize more the idea of the chaos that our crazy public transportation system.

A transportation Jungle, a source of inspiration for urban toys

What? A Metro Station? Yeah right. Good luck with that. What you have here is an ant farm, a jungle filled with trucks and taxis of all years, brands and shapes. And together an infinite number of big, medium, and small colorful, environmentally unfriendly buses, colloquially named by Peruvians as “Micros”.

What can be more urban? more representative of my city than a “micro”?  An what better way of talking of a new Peru, a country desperately and constantly searching for a new order, than using my urban toys as a canvas for its colors and symbols?

An urban toy, a WAKO micro, is a good attempt to reflect about the super deep pop culture landscape, a space where most Peruvians forcefully meet and silently build a sense of the country and the other.

WAKO.Micro.Collection, urban toy I

Resin sculpture and acrylic painting, 16x12x12cms, limited edition 5/5 

Many of the references have different routes licensed by the transportation authorities. Keep in mind, Lima is a 14 million people city and concentrates 40% of Peru’s economic production. Transportation is a deep deep, super deep problem.

 WAKO.Micro.Collection, urban toy II.

Resin sculpture and acrylic painting, 16x12x12cms, limited edition 5/5 

Another bus that cuts through one of our city arteries.

 WAKO.Micro.Collection, urban toy III

Resin sculpture and acrylic painting, 16x12x12cms, limited edition 5/5 

Another bus that cuts through one of our city arteries.

 WAKO.Micro.Collection, urban toy IV

Resin sculpture and acrylic painting, 16x12x12cms, limited edition 5/5 

This is not a bus, but a truck as you can see. They also circulate together with the Micros through many important streets. If you reach the highway, they are the kings, the lions among the hyenas.

 WAKO.Micro.Collection, urban toy V

Resin sculpture and acrylic painting, 16x12x12cms, limited edition 5/5 

You can deduce that the chess decoration on the car makes reference to a car. That is almost the only uniform that you’ll see on one of this because cabs don’t need to have the same color, size or shape.

 WAKO.Micro.Collection, urban toy VI

Resin sculpture and acrylic painting, 16x12x12cms, limited edition 5/5 

In this case, the chess decoration is the second taxi alternative. Again, as in the previous case, that is almost the only uniform that you’ll see on one of this because cabs don’t need to have the same color, size or shape. Also, the red and white 3M traffic stickers are mandatory for all public transportation.

Something also came to my attention

Lima is a gray city. The sky is gray, the city is a valley in the middle of a desert, so there is dust and dirt everywhere. It’s also a morally conservative culture, inherited by deep-rooted Catholicism from the Spanish colonization in the 16th century. This is palpable in the city colors, the building are dirty, grayish, brownish. Private transportation is no exception, the colors of cars are variations of white, gray, and black. In contrast, you’ll find the chaos and saturation of this urban metropolis and melting pot of cultures of 14 million inhabitants, in its noisy, infinite micros.

These WAKO urban toy collection are a tribute to our infinite chaos, sees as infinity possibility.

Share “Urban Art Toys” on: