Today Swedish play design studio Toca Boca launches the second product in its Artist Play Series – Toca Paper Creatures – a physical paper toy created in collaboration with Argentinian artist CHU (Julian Pablo Manzelli).

The colourful pieces of Toca Paper Creatures can be combined in thousands of different ways to make a completely unique little creature in the style of artist CHU. Currently living in Buenos Aires, CHU is known for his work in art, illustration, graphic design and animation, among others. As the co-founder of the DOMA Collective, a multidisciplinary art and design collective, CHU played a key role in bringing street art to Buenos Aires.

Toca Boca and CHU unveiled this collaboration at a public event in Buenos Aires on the 22nd November, which they hosted alongside the city’s Office for the Protection of Children to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The event saw families come together to build a giant paper creature together with the artist, as well as enjoying a number of other games and activities.

Jens Peter de Pedro, Play Designer at Toca Boca comments: “Children have the fundamental right to play and to engage with culture and the arts. Our collaboration with Chu encapsulates Toca Boca’s philosophy of design and playfulness: we are always exploring new ways of delivering fun play experiences that celebrate creativity and spark the imagination, even beyond the digital screen.”

Artist, CHU, speaking about the Toca Paper Creatures project, also comments: “For me, art is all about play and keeping a connection to childhood. During this process I got to play with prototypes and try them out with different kids all over the world. It was really inspiring to try and keep the kids’ perspective throughout the whole process”.

Perfect as a unique Christmas gift or stocking filler, Toca Paper Creatures is available to purchase for $30 from the Toca Boca online store – shop.tocaboca.com – along with Toca Ink, a range of temporary tattoos designed by Brooklyn-based tattoo artist, Virginia Elwood.

Press images of Toca Paper Creatures and CHU can be found here.

About CHU
Julian Manzelli, alias Chu, is a multifaceted artist from Buenos Aires. He is a part of DOMA Collective, an experimental art group where he has developed public art, installations, character design and animation. His body of work can be described as a long journey towards abstraction, through which his own characters are deconstructed, as science meets art, along the border of chaos. Chu has exhibited his art in galleries and public spaces around the world, in cities such as: Barcelona, Berlin, New York, Miami, Istanbul and Sao Paolo. http://www.studioChu.tv

About Toca Boca
With offices in Stockholm and San Francisco, Toca Boca is a studio creating gender-neutral, non-competitive apps that allow children to play in a safe digital environment, without external advertising or the option to make in-app purchases. Since 2011, Toca Boca has released 25 digital toy apps that have been downloaded over 75 million times in more than 160 countries worldwide. Toca Boca is part of the Bonnier Group, a family-owned global media company that began as a book publisher in 1804, and has grown to include newspapers, magazines, television, cinemas and digital media.