German Artist Uses Legos To Fill Cracks & Crevices In Monuments Around The World

Tel Aviv, Paris, Berlin and Barcelona--these are just four out of close to forty places around the world where you could chance upon German artist Jan Vormann’s kaleidoscopic ‘patchwork’ installations in the streets. Vormann has travelled the world for the last eight years with his project ‘Dispatchwork’ repairing buildings with colourful pieces of one of our favourite childhood toys--Lego--filling in cracks and crevices in public spaces. Vormann’s work is colourful and cheerful, but it’s not always as light-hearted as it may seem. Speaking to Hi-Fructose  magazine he states that he usually picks buildings that have a historical past or political undertones. For example, one of the places where you can see his work is behind a train station in Berlin from where during World War II many Jewish citizens were deported. But, it’s not about drawing attention to the grim and dark times of the past necessarily, but in fact, to add “a kind of colourful part of contemporary times; a material that everybody worldwide has the same feeling on it,” he says. “For me, it’s a kind of hopeful things to see that we share a this common culture.”

For Vormann, the use of Lego toys was a method of interrupting people’s daily routines. “Public spaces are often used for transit only...My project aims to hit the playful spots that exist in all of us--concerning adults, for example, childhood memories,” says Vormann speaking to Young Germany. “Playing is the most powerful creative source, for every kind of profession. When I go out to the streets to do my project and involve kids, I also attempt to make these kids conscious about possibilities they have for changing the public spaces surrounding them.”

Juxtaposing grey walls and the rainbows of Lego pieces, Vormann’s project has spread across international boundaries. Calling for participants to do their own ‘patchwork’ in their hometowns and sending it in, Vormann’s has created an international community, of sorts, a “piece of global culture,” as he puts it. The project’s website hosts a interactive map with the locations of artworks in numerous countries, we’ve posted below images of some of our favourites by Vormann and various others around the world.