Otvorenje izložbe: Zlatko Mateša, Klaudija Bubalo, Stela Posavec, Marijan Sutlović, Danira Bilić, Iris Biškupić Bašić, Krešimir Partl, Goranka Horjan

The exhibition “Sport as play” came about as a result of cooperation with the Ethnographic Museum of Zagreb, forming a part of their larger exhibition project “Toys – childhood forever”. The project, arrayed around the Ethnographic Museum’s exhibition showcases the wealth and diversity of Croatia’s traditional, artistic and industrial children’s toys and games. Between June 2021 and May 2022, the Ethnographic Museum’s exhibition was joined by smaller, separate exhibitions linked to the subject and prepared by Zagreb’s citizens, workshops and museums that collect and preserve children’s toys in their own collections. These specialized exhibitions rotated on a monthly basis.

The Croatian Sports Museum presented sports equipment once used to practice sports which are, in effect, toys, having been used to play around. The oldest of these are from the late 19th and early 20th century and it is particularly interesting to look at look at them and compare their appearance then and the appearance of similar pieces of equipment today. As sports developed, so did the equipment and, often, technological development and the improvement of equipment shaped techniques and tactics used in sports. As an example, older tennis rackets were made of wood with a string web made from animal entrails, but the appearance of more modern materials has greatly sped up the game. The exhibition presents various old items: a bicycle from the end of the 19th century locally referred to as a velocipede, old balls, bats, rackets, skates and numerous other pieces of sports equipment. The games played by children are in some ways a precursor to sports so the exhibition includes items such as a tricycle and rollerskates.

The exhibition’s author is Marijan Sutlović, Curator from the Croatian Sports Museum. The author of the central exhibition and the project as a whole is dr.sc. Iris Biškupić Bašić, Museum Advisor of the Ethnographic Museum of Zagreb.