Huge Colorful Toy Sculptures and Spring Blooms Come Together for Interactive Exhibit at South Coast Botanic Garden
Southern California’s ONLY Stop on National Tour Will Connect Families to Nature Utilizing 500,000 LEGO® Bricks
What do you get when you combine more than 500,000 toy bricks with countless spring blooms in a lush garden? South Coast Botanic Garden is hosting the only Southern California stop for the LEGO® -brick art collection Nature Connects, presented by Los Angeles Magazine.
The interactive art installation, entirely constructed from over half a million toy bricks, will bring 27 larger-than-life, nature-themed sculptures to 15 separate and distinct sections in the Garden. Multiple interactive activities include a bricks raceway, creative bricks building area and children’s reading lounge help round out the diverse and compelling exhibit. Visitors will be invited to download a customized mobile app to unlock ‘hidden’ facts and a map about each sculpture while walking through the garden.
The South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes Peninsula is the only Southern California stop for this nationally touring exhibit, which is open to the public from February 19 through May 8, 2016.
The sculptures, created by New York-based artist Sean Kenney, took seven months to build. The pieces are all incredibly detailed and assembled exclusively using the popular connecting toys. They range from a 575-piece statue of a goldfinch to a 31, 565- piece hummingbird, the symbol of the South Coast Botanic Garden, to a 45,143-piece bison that stands over 6 feet tall.
“This is the first botanic garden in Southern California to offer this one-of-a-kind and engaging artistic vision, representing a whole new way to experience nature through art,” said South Coast Botanic Garden Foundation CEO Adrienne Nakashima. “In bringing Nature Connects to South Coast Botanic Garden, we hope to share the importance of making connections with the natural world. More importantly, with the garden’s commitment to providing a unique horticultural and wildlife habitat experience, we want to invite everyone to get connected with nature and encourage imagination and play through the familiarity of LEGO® toy bricks.”
Sponsors for the Nature Connects exhibit include: Los Angeles Magazine; E Page; Promenade on the Peninsula; Kellogg Garden Products, Choura Events, Gusdorf Marketing Group; The Nakashima Family; SA Recycling, SoCal Office Technologies; Sunrise at Palos Verdes; and K12.
Sponsors for the Imagination and Play Center include: Supervisor Don Knabe, County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors; The Billman Group at Morgan Stanley, Portia and Andy Cohen, Northrup Grumman; and the Palos Verdes Library District.
Other sponsors include: Galileo Innovation Camps; Good Stuff; Simmzy’s; Lattes on Location; Yoobi; SBS Payroll; Time Rack and Union Bank.
Membership allows entry into the garden 364 days a year along with other exclusive perks including free parking, special members-only events and discounts. Membership covers access to this exhibition as well as admission to the Garden all year long.
