By Génia Abbey, 2025 Collections and Conservation Intern
How many people can say they’ve had the opportunity to work somewhere they used to love as a child? This summer, I have been lucky enough to return to a place that holds cherished childhood memories for me, The Strong National Museum of Play. Over the course of my summer internship, I have not only had the chance to discover what happens behind the scenes at a large museum and to learn more about collections and conservation work, but also to reflect on childhood memories. As a result, I have found myself drawing connections between my current interests and several beloved spaces within the museum. To me, these spaces and the types of play that I enjoyed as a child seem to reflect how I define my interests today.
If you or your child identify as a thespian, you might be familiar with the miniature stage in Imagination Destination, complete with a red velvet curtain, a backstage dressing room, a lighting and sound board, and even a popcorn stand. When I was younger, I loved to get dressed up and put on performances for my adoring audience, a.k.a. my parents. As I grew older, my interest in theater continued to develop, and in 6th grade, I jumped at the chance to act in my school’s production of Mary Poppins. In high school, I continued to act in plays and musicals every year and even served as Drama Club President my senior year. After revisiting the stage at The Strong, it’s clear to me that theater and performance have always been a fun and meaningful way of expressing myself and understanding others. Although I have not had the time to pursue theater in college, I still feel drawn to the stage, and I hope to return to acting sometime in the future. Hopefully, when I take to the stage again, it will be a bit bigger than the one in Imagination Destination!
You might also be familiar with the small room in Imagination Destination that is equipped with a disco ball, a range of buttons allowing you to select different music genres, and best of all—at least to my young self—a seemingly magical screen where your own dancing silhouette leaves a mesmerizing wake of shifting colors. As a child, I could have probably spent hours following the music, experimenting with new movements, and watching how they translated into shapes and colors. This summer, as I revisited my favorite exhibits, I found it very interesting that I loved this room, known as the DanceLab, so much, since it incorporates many of my current interests. For instance, I started dancing in a studio when I was three years old and I continue to dance formally even today. In college, I have performed in dance department showcases and I also joined an Irish dance club. Similarly, I have always loved music. Over the years, I have studied piano, cello, and voice, and I continue to take voice lessons and sing in a choir today as I pursue a minor in Music. Additionally, although I do not have any formal training in visual art, I enjoy experimenting with it when I get the chance. Photography in particular interests me, and I enjoy capturing interesting interactions between light, color, and shape in photos. It is easy to draw connections between my current interests in dance, music, and visual art and DanceLab—it seems to me that my play there as a child was a manifestation of my desire for creative and artistic expression. As you can see from the photo, it’s still a fun way to experiment with sound, shape, and color!
The final space that called to me this summer was Reading Adventureland, an area of the museum that fuels imagination and promotes reading through fun activities, multi-level play areas, and a genre-based layout. An avid reader, “little me” loved this area because of the focus on books and the opportunities to engage with my favorite stories using a combination of physical materials and imagination. Like DanceLab, Reading Adventureland could have held my attention for hours—my mom recalls a few instances when she had to urge me to put down a book that I had found so that we could continue to explore the rest of the museum. Today, you can still find me with my nose in a book. I’m usually bouncing between at least three or four books of different genres or styles, and I am a dedicated Goodreads user. I have also chosen two very literature-heavy majors in college: Comparative Literature and French. The classes that I have taken for these majors are some of my favorites because I get the chance to immerse myself entirely in a new and fascinating world. Books have always helped me understand and contextualize my own life experiences through the experiences of others, which is why Reading Adventureland still holds a special place in my heart.
Of course, not everything I used to love in the museum is directly related to my current interests. For example, another one of my favorite exhibit spaces was Wegmans Super Kids Market since I, like many children, loved to engage in play that mimicked adult behavior. Although I do enjoy a good Wegmans run, I wouldn’t say that I’m a grocery store fanatic. I also liked pretending to pilot the plane in Imagination Destination, but I’m afraid I don’t see a future in aviation for myself, even though I do love to travel. Still, it is quite notable that many of my favorite exhibits have such a direct connection to some of my major interests today.
After considerable reflection on these fascinating connections between the play I enjoyed as a child at The Strong and my present-day interests, I was left with several questions. First of all, how exactly do our favorite types of childhood play connect with our interests as an adult? Does childhood play influence our adult interests, reflect innate interests, or a little bit of both? And finally, how do adults engage in forms of play that align with their interests? Although I certainly don’t have the answers to these questions, I think that they merit serious consideration. It is very possible that by reexamining our childhood play, we might discover important identities and interests that characterize our current selves. Perhaps, we might even bring a little more playfulness and fun into our lives as we rediscover the joy of childhood play.