‘The Collectivity Project’ by Olafur Eliasson

The Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s art is driven by his interests in perception, movement, embodied experience, and feelings of self. Eliasson strives to make the concerns of art relevant to society at large. Art, for him, is a crucial means for turning thinking into doing in the world.

For Panorama, Eliasson presents The collectivity project, an installation of white LEGO® bricks that features an imaginary cityscape conceived and designed by the public.

Visitors to the High Line are welcomed to play with the installation, building and rebuilding the structures over time.

As the inevitable entropy of the piece begins to soften the hard edges of the designed structures, and mounds of loose pieces gather in the corners between buildings, a beautiful collective creation takes form.

Installed in the growing shadow of the real estate development of Hudson Yards, the mutable, human-scale artwork provides a compelling counterpoint to the concrete-and-steel towers that form the project’s backdrop.

The collectivity project has previously been installed in public squares in Tirana, Albania (2005), Oslo, Norway (2006), and Copenhagen, Denmark (2008).

“The collectivity project,” part of the group exhibition “Panorama,” is made possible, in part, by a generous donation of LEGO® bricks from the LEGO Group.

“Panorama” is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photos by Timothy Schenck.