A world of pure imagination
As the story goes, my mom had to teach me how to play. She recounts how she had to sit with me on the floor and play with blocks and other toys before I would play with them. I just wasn’t interested.
Some might say this is a developmental issue, maybe they’re right. Even now, play does not come naturally to me.
I have to work at it.
Maybe that’s why reading is a great hobby for me – no play. I can just open a book and immerse myself in a world of pure imagination.
Yet, I do enjoy LEGO and follow creators (Helge and Aqil) who build LEGO sets and then unbuild them to raise money for Palestine.
The LEGO Story
I’ve been meaning to attend this exhibit for a while. Back in February, I finished The LEGO Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination by Jens Andersen. Pete Cross narrates the audiobook.
The LEGO Story is a wide-ranging and deeply researched corporate history with some good inside gossip and generally positive takes on the company. But it’s not without its critiques of LEGO and does highlight challenges and missteps. In particular, it recounts how LEGO has sometimes struggled to find its place as an analog toy in a digital world.
The LEGO story is also a family history filled with joy and tragedy, often inversely related to LEGO’s own success.
Although I found it a bit slow in parts, the LEGO story is an essential read for every LEGO fan.
Everything is awesome!!!
I attended a Friday evening showing. I liked that it was less crowded than usual, which meant a lower risk experience.
Although not formally affiliated with LEGO, the Art of the Brick installation at The Franklin Institute furthers LEGO’s core mission to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow.
The exhibit celebrates imagination, fun, and creativity while encouraging learning in a caring environment. All LEGO core values.
Even the rules put sharing and creativity at the center.
In the brick play space, the rules are simple:
- Be kind to other builders.
- Share materials.
- Don’t eat or drink.
- Don’t leave a mess.
- Be creative and have fun!
My favorite rule was the receptacle at the exit just in case you had any brick hitchhikers in your pockets.
Naturally, I forgot to take a photo of that.
Art nurtures the brain
Overheard at Art of the Brick:
Mom: These are all famous works of art in LEGO.
Daughter: Mmm
Mom, sensing boredom: There’s a LEGO play station at the end.
Daughter, very excited: Can we skip right to the end?
Mom: No.
Even though I could not see her, I could literally feel the daughter’s hope disappear like a 1 x 1 up a toddler’s nose.
Of course, I loved Nathan Sawaya’s reproductions. For me, the highlight was the 3D Arnolfini Portrait, comprised of 7,023 bricks.
The scale of these artworks is staggering with some including more than 100,00 LEGO bricks. Definitely not your average LEGO set.
In Perniciem, a collaboration with Dean West, we experience a world in which hyper-realistic nature photography coexist alongside LEGO bricks in an augmented reality. These pieces feature animals facing extinction, including tigers, elephants, and rhinoceros. These animals are depicted as unreal in a hyper-realistic environment, reinforcing the possibility that soon photography and LEGO sets may be all we have left of these magnificent animals.
In Sawaya’s original pieces, we share his unique perspective on the world. LEGO bricks may be all about play, but the images he creates are anything but frivolous.
Crowd challenges your perceptions of people and space. It’s all in how you look at the problem.
A very helpful guard guided my phone to get this shot of an all-seeing eye piercing the crowd.
With Decisions, Sawaya challenges us to ask: what is the relationship between hope and despair. Composed of 112,306 bricks, the piece plays with our brightest and darkest emotions.
From one angle, the pieces are terrifying.
From another angle, they are majestic.
The symbiosis between these two contrasting emotions hangs by an invisible thread. And leaves us thinking as you enter the play space.
A play space for all
When I reached the play space at the end of the exhibit, I sat at the table and didn’t know what to do. It was about 6 PM, and the LEGO bricks had been picked over quite a bit. 
In the bin, I noticed orange and purple bricks. I wanted to build a tiger paw but just didn’t know how. So I settled for a CU instead.
Go Tigers!