The project group "We Want Plastic – Research on Action Figures" was founded in 2005 by Pablo Dornhege (now a professor at HTW Berlin) and me, Christoph Franz. Our goal was to create a joint diploma thesis on the topic of "Action Figures" as part of the Visual Communication program at UDK Berlin, within the Exhibition Design department led by Professor Gerhard Diel.
From the initial idea, a concept emerged that encompassed both an exhibition and a book project. The aim was to trace the historical development of the action figure phenomenon—from its introduction to the toy market in 1964 with the launch of the first "G.I. Joe" figure, up to the present day. Additionally, the project was designed to include a historical section on "play" in general and "play with figures" in particular, as well as a phenomenological analysis of action figures as an industrial product, a plaything, and a cultural object. We chose the Neue Sammlung Nürnberg as the ideal location for the exhibition due to the city’s historical significance in the toy industry and its role as the host of the world's largest toy fair.
Research on this topic proved to be highly complex at the time. Key sources of information, such as YouTube, were still in their infancy, and collectors and enthusiasts were far less connected internationally than they are today. Moreover, traditional media—particularly books on this subject—were and still are relatively scarce.
As part of the project, we reached out to fan clubs, conducted interviews, and engaged with leading managers of the German branches of the largest action figure manufacturers, Hasbro and Mattel. We visited the world's largest toy fair in Nuremberg, combed through the Internet for figure databases, blogs, and vintage commercial video clips, and managed to photograph numerous historic figures from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Among our key finds was an original "Bild-Lilli" doll—the German doll that Ruth Handler discovered and transformed into her world-famous Barbie, which in turn served as an inspiration for G.I. Joe.
Following our successful diploma examination, there were several attempts to bring both the book and the exhibition concept to life, including discussions with Taschen Verlag. Although neither project has been realized to this day, they remain among the most significant projects of my career. The enthusiasm, energy, and adventurous spirit that characterized this work still represent, for me, the ideal vision of a design process.
