International Lego Classicism Day 2022 - Q & A With Liam D. Jensen

To celebrate International Lego Classicism Day 2022, Chau Chak Wing Foundation conducted a Q&A with the Lego Classicist (https://www.thelcfamily.com/liamdjensen) himself, Liam D. Jensen. Dr Chau Chak Wing is a proud member of the Lego Classicists Family with Chau Chak Wing Foundation as part of the LC Pantheon. As the creator of the Lego Classicists Family, Liam D. Jensen produces innovative Lego figurines of remarkable people across the world. He passionately advocates the significant use of Lego as an educational tool, with International Lego Classicism Day celebrating the incredible diversity of the ancient world.

Why did you choose Dr Chau Chak Wing to be the International Lego Classicism Day 2021 Special Figure?

This was a very easy decision for me as Dr. Chau is the major benefactor of the new Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney which houses the largest antiquities collection in the southern hemisphere, through the Nicholson Collection (that includes my favourite piece, The Nicholson Hermes). Benefactors and patrons are some of the most important people in any history and arts institution throughout history as without important people like Dr. Chau we would not have public spaces to engage with important historical collections.

Tell us how you created the Dr Chau Chak Wing Lego figurine

With Dr. Chau, I first did a lot of visual research online so that I could get a sense of his public personality (including what suit and tie he often wears). After I got a sense of how I wanted the portrait to feel, I then started to look for the right head and hair pieces. LEGO has literally 1000s of heads and hair parts to choose from, so this process can take a lot of time searching through all of these, then once I find the parts I think will work, I then order them in from overseas. At the same time, I started to design the torso and to do this with my figures I digitally draw onto Adobe Illustrator, and once it’s finished I send the finished image to a specialty printing company in the UK who print directly onto blank LEGO parts. Once all parts come in I put all of the pieces together to weigh up the finished figure to see if I think it feels like the person (with Dr. Chau it was “spot on” the first go).

How did the concept for International Lego Classicism Day begin? What made you start building Lego portraits?

This is a story in two parts: The first part happened almost by accident, when I was working on an engraving collection. During my break I was clearing my mind by looking through some LEGO parts online and I saw some figure parts that reminded me of a family friend who was an Associate Professor of Classics, so I got the parts, took a photo of it at his university and put it up on Facebook and it went semi viral amongst his students.

But the second part is the real beginning of these portraits. When I heard that the Senior Curator of the then Nicholson Museum, Michael Turner, had announced he was stepping down, I wanted to make him a Lego Figure portrait as a going away present and so this time I had to really think about what it was to make a Lego Figure look like a person in real life yet still look like a Lego Figure that you would see in a Lego set. So I wrote down a set of consistent rules to follow in my design to ensure a visual consistency. This is why I often think of Lego Michael Turner as the real first Lego Classicist as it was the first one that I designed with 100% intention and I then started making more of these figures for other academic friends in the discipline of ancient history, and so Lego Classicists was officially born.

The idea for International Lego Classicism Day was born from an email conversation between myself and Assoc. Prof. Plant (who was the Head of the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University) when we worked out it was coming to the first anniversary of Lego Classicists and it was decided to hold a high tea outside the their Museum (so Ian is also the co-founder of ILCD).

But since then its grown into something much bigger than just an anniversary, as now its’ been owned by individuals, universities, institutions and museums across the world as a way of engaging with the ancient world through LEGO bricks.

Tell us what you love about the Lego Pompeii exhibition at Chau Chak Wing Museum.

Where to start?! Well, the thing about the Lego Pompeii, and indeed its sister Lego Acropolis in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, is that they are probably the most powerful educational LEGO models I have ever seen. They were both the creative brainchild of Michael Turner when he was the Senior Curator of the Nicholson Museum and his way of gathering all time through past and present in one space really is ground breaking and by making us look at history through the canvas of LEGO, tricks us to pay attention to what is fundamentally extremely complex.

Apart from the Lego model, what do you think is the most interesting exhibition at the Chau Chak Wing Museum?

There are two exhibitions I think are extremely important, one I know intimately, Object/Art/Specimen, curated by Dr. Paul Donnelly, which shows how much more powerful the collections from the old Nicholson Museum, the Macleay Museum and the University Art Gallery are now that they are gathered into one big place in the Chau Chak Wing Museum and can inter-relate with each other and tell much more complex stories when they come together.

The second exhibition which I’ve not got the chance to go through deeply yet, is Auspicious Motifs in Chinese Art, curated by Dr. Shuxia Chen. I think the concept of spiritual symbolism is incredibly exciting and meaningful (and something very in tune with all ancient cultures). I very much hope to learn more from this exhibition soon!

What do you love the most about Lego?

Well, first let’s start with the fact that, of course, I have a childhood nostalgic joy with LEGO as nearly all of us are children of LEGO as the toy dates back to the late 1940s. But as an adult and 4th generation artist, the LEGO brick is a perfect example of form and function, and I love its intrinsic insistence to be used and picked up to form something greater than the sum of its parts whether as a toy or as an artwork. It is universal and extremely complex yet completely simple.

As a historical archivist, do you ever get to implement your love of Lego into your daily job?

Yes, every day! I use Lego Classicists as a way of incubating with my archiving work. Often, I find myself with a problem and need to let my thoughts rest in the background so I find designing new Lego Classicists figure portraits helps me a lot as it’s still creative problem-solving so it means my subconscious is still working on the work related problem in my mind.

I also often get ideas for Lego Classicist portraits from the historical engravings and collections I work with, through the collections I find out about interesting people, in current times or in the past. My idea for Lego Thomas Hope (an early classicist and adventurer) and Sir Arthur Evans came that way, and some of the modern classicists who have joined the family have been the result of collections I have worked on for various institutions. For instance, Prof. John Bennet, Director of the British School of Athens inspired me when I was working on a collection of 1785 hand-coloured engravings of Greek pottery that is now at the School.

Do you have any exciting future projects?

One is a new concept that I have never done before and which I was invited to do, so I am looking forward to its challenges but at this stage its very hush hush, but I hope to announce it later this year.

The second is something that’s been in the works for over 2 years: this year I will be the Virtual Artist in Residence at the British School at Athens and I will be creating 12 Lego Figure portraits of significant people involved in the BSA’s history and the final exhibition will be shared virtually online by the School. We had originally planned for me to do the Artist in Residency in person in the normal way, but due to the pandemic, this wasn’t possible. This will be the first time the BSA has held a Virtual Artist in Residency. I will be starting work on this project immediately after International Lego Classicism Day.