That Plush Object of Desire

labubu, pop culture, consumerism, capitalism, desire, collectible toys, designer toys, blind box, toy collecting, consumer culture, marketing, art toys

2026 11mMovie

Documentary

One day, a Labubu is left on Karl Marx’s grave. Is it the code of a global revolution, or a child’s gift to “the bearded grandpa”? Blind Box sets journalist Pınar Öğünç’s critical essay against the designer’s eye of Candan İşcan, artist and creator of Tahtoy. The film looks at how the cute monster turns otherness into something familiar, and how the blind box turns desire into a gambling instinct. It also looks at a 21st-century capital that openly partners with political power, and at the path to wealth being shown to a generation neither in school nor at work. Photocopied and risograph-printed images, AI-generated frames, Godard-style colour intertitles and music by Atonal Sounds collide. In the end one possibility remains: the real bond with a toy forms somewhere outside this speed.