Jumpei Mitsui pushes artistic boundaries with bricks

The life of a LEGO Certified Professional is a glamorous one – at least when you’re Jumpei Mitsui and your latest client is gaming auteur Hideo Kojima. But as impressed as we are by the builder’s life-size Ludens model, it’s the builder’s latest non-commercial work that I find most exciting.

Last year, we reported that Jumpei was returning to higher education to study artistic expression at Tokyo University of the Arts. It turns out that where Jumpei goes, LEGO follows, as the artist’s first academic project is all about the brick.

Here’s how Jumpei explains this interactive project:

1. Participants are asked to assemble small pieces following specific instructions.
2. These small pieces are then used to construct a completely different, larger structure.
3. The final outcome is kept hidden from the participants during the process.

The individual models are made entirely of white bricks and form easily recognizable objects like an airplane or bird.

But together they can be jigsawed together to form a new image: a looming skeleton, based on a famous ukiyo-e print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi. It must have been quite a surprise for the participants to see their playful toy creations transformed into a grinning skull!

As the artist explains:

This work depicts how the accumulation of individual actions can transform into unintended complicity. The production process has been documented on video, making the process itself an integral part of the artwork.

Jumpei’s builds as a certified professional have long amazed audiences with what can be made from LEGO bricks. It’s inspiring to see Jumpei’s work explore the power of bringing participants into the process in a hands-on way.

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