Giant Lego art installation coming to the Bay

INTERACTIVE: The work needs an audience's touch. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

It's Lego, but not as we know it.

Getting its hands on an internationally travelled art installation project is a real coup for the Hastings City Art Gallery.

Gallery director Toni MacKinnon announced this week that The Cubic Structural Evolution Project will arrive next month and open in June.

Made up of 50,000 pieces of white Lego, it relies on the viewing public to build an "outlandish and titanic" city.

Internationally it has been installed in Tirana, Albania, Oslo, Norway, Copenhagen, Denmark, New York and Queensland, among other places. In New Zealand it has opened in Auckland and Wellington.

Next up is Hastings, in the Hastings City Art Gallery.

The brainchild of Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, the work is put together by the audience who are invited to build their vision of a future city on an "enormous" table.

It is expected that more than 8000 people will see the free exhibition.

MacKinnon says the popularity of the project can be attributed to the ability of the public to participate.

"The work needs an audience's touch to be brought to life - an unusual quality for a gallery work - and so it becomes about the people who make it. With this universal toy everyday people explore possibilities in building, engineering and design.

"The project becomes a shared celebration of creative play," says MacKinnon.

A lot of work has gone into bringing the "fantastical" Lego installation to the gallery.

"This really is an amazing opportunity. We're sure the public will embrace it - it is a very rare chance to be involved in what has proven to be a very popular installation across the world."

To help cover the costs of bringing in such a notable exhibition the gallery is being supported by several local sponsors: iQualify, Furnware New Zealand, Hastings Business Association and Band.

The Cubic Structural Evolution Project will open at the Hastings City Art Gallery on June 4, and stay in place, changing daily, until August 28.