What your toys say about you: Spanning 58 countries, Toy Stories is a photographic study of the objects children love most

The photo came out pretty well and Gabriele – who has previously shot for the likes of National Geographic and Marie Claire – loved the result. Later on, he decided to take the idea with him when he was commissioned by the Italian magazine D La Republicca for a two-year job that would take him around the world. The major publication employed the photographer to delve into the wonders of couch surfing – and by delving, I mean travelling through 58 countries using only couch surfing as a means of accommodation. And while he was on this two-year jaunt, he took the opportunity to also take pictures of other kids and their toys along the way.

The personal project proved to be a faithful companion to Gabriele’s couch-surfing commission, introducing him to myriad people irrespective of culture, language or wealth. Each week, he’d report back to D La Republicca regarding his latest couch surf, then in his spare time, he’d work on capturing what would eventually become thousands of portraits to make up the series. As a consequence, Toy Stories features the children, nieces, nephews and neighbours of his hosts on this mammoth trip. Candidly photographed in the space they most like to play, the extensive body of work has recently been published in a new book of the same title. Published by Abrams Books, it’s a delightful throwback to the toy cars, doe-eyed puppies, princess outfits, games consoles, Lego, plastic food, and scary baby dolls of yesteryear. And that’s not even the half of it.

Not content with shooting two huge projects while on his globe-trotting trip, Gabriele took the time to complete a third vast and fascinating series. Just before he was about to embark on the two-year-long couch-surfing trip, Gabriele’s family was a little worried; the thought of him spending all that time away in strangers’ houses surrounded by unfamiliar tongues. As for Gabriele’s grandmother, she was more worried about what he was going to eat. She implored her grandson, “You should stay at home. I can cook for you,” and he replied with a laugh, “You know what Grandma? There are many grandmothers all over the world who I’m sure would be happy to feed me and cook something special for me.” So he also went and found them on this trip.

When he wasn’t busy with the couch-surfing series or photographing kids for Toy Stories, therefore, Gabriele sat down with grandmothers all over the world, sampling their signature dishes along the way, culminating in a series titled In Her Kitchen. Stylistically, the compositions in Toy Stories and In Her Kitchen are similar. The image is controlled, brightly lit and considered. Cooking ingredients or the neatly displayed toys are always evenly spaced out with care in front of the subject. The photographs could be described as borderline sterile in their Wes Anderson-like curation, but it’s the intriguing relationship between sitter, their objects, and the cultural context that devours our attention.

Toy Stories is just as much a study in class, geographical privilege, and inequality as it is about the nostalgia of toys. But that’s not to say that the children with fewer toys are any less content than those with dozens. Fundamentally, the series is about what kinds of objects bring comfort to children no matter where or how they live, regardless of socioeconomic status. Because, at the root of it all – beyond their material, size or shape – that’s what toys are all about.

When it came to gaining their trust with these sacred objects, in most cases (unlike Taha’s), it was pretty easy. “I simply played with them!” says Gabriele, who often had a little help from their parents, of course. Sometimes, all it took was for the photographer to whip out his phone and show the youngsters images of previous participants. “I was really surprised to see how easy it was for children to understand my project,” he says. And this is the beauty of Toy Stories – its meaning is understood in one awe-inspired glance, accessible beyond language or culture. Without any waffle whatsoever, in this candid heartfelt documentation, Gabriele captures the things we love most when we are most free from inhibition.