GRAPAT
GRAPAT is a family toy company from Spain. Their creations are inspired by the beauty of nature, and the limitless creativity that blossomed through free play, loose parts, open and unstructured play materials, unbounded by any rules nor time. All the materials are safe and are sustainably and ethically sourced.
Indeed, when I try to write an introduction for GRAPAT, nothing comes out more beautifully than the own words of Casiana & Jordi, the founders of Grapat, Spain.
Here it is an excerpt from their “ABOUT US”,
“Grapat is a small family project that materialized from leaving the city to live in a natural environment…
It inspires us to see our children and other children playing, the game has something sacred, like a parallel world-like meditation that is governed by its own rules, times. The game is the moment of the YES, where EVERYTHING IS OK, except the rules that are established and that normally have to do with not hurting oneself, others, the environment, the material and the creations of others … And When these moments of true play occur we take care of it, we protect it as if it were a sacred moment. We do not interrupt, we take care of space, we keep silent …
It inspires us daily to see how the need to play, almost more than to eat (in our case), leads them to play with a stone in a horrible field in the midday sun in summer. The game in children is like an earthquake that can not be stopped, however much we adults try with all our strength. Free play, loose parts, open and unstructured material startle us daily because it transforms into what they decide and which are the fruit of their internal need. We propose a material without instructions, the only premise is to let do, without time, slowly. A material that incites, invites, causes the creation of diverse worlds, fantastic, realistic, invented …
Come and see! Welcome to Grapat and happy playing!”