…Because hands know more than you know!
After the pic, here it is a fun clip of what happened during the LegoInterview with Francesca Valan.
It’s a short clip, just to make you feel the atmosphere and let you have a taste of the experience.
A bit thanks to Pietro for the amazing editing!
[I apologise, the video is available only in Italian now – the whole LegoView will be available shortly, with English Subtitles].
Building Israel in Jerusalem
I was walking around Jerusalem’s bus station looking at the stalls and the shops when this young man stops me to show me his production. He is kind, he asks me where I am from, we start talking. ‘So, you are a designer, a creative person right?’ I ask him. He nods proudly. ‘Would you like to be part of an experiment with this…’ I ask him while showing him the LEGO bricks. He is puzzled and at the end he accepts.
We go to a cafe and I do not waste time: ‘What is Israel?’ He stares at me and at the bricks. ‘With this pieces it sounds hard…! Should it be the present or what…’. I insist not giving him any clue. ‘Show me what Israel is’. He starts talking, and I invite him not to talk, but to build. He is uncomfortable. He is out of his comfort zone. Shortly he says he is done.
Adam Levick is the CIF Watch managing director since July 2010. He was born in Philadelphia (US) and moved to Israel in 2009. His blog is the story of his personal journey, and it’s through his blog and his work that I decided to contact him.
I meet Adam in a cafe in Jerusalem – he is finishing his work, while I sit down and take out the bricks. Although I have told him about my interviewing technique, he is a little surprised at the beginning but he accepts the challenge and I ask my apparently simple and only question: ‘What is Israel?‘
Adam’s model of Israel
‘…With These?’ he says looking at the bricks giggling and starting building. After a while he looks at the bricks ‘Mmmh… this is pretty good, I can explain it!’ he says almost surprised about his model.
This month the blog has been silent and quiet, but the there are many kind of silence – some can be more noisy than others. And this was a very noisy kind of silence.
LegoViews is a fast growing idea – this apparent silence has been filled with projects, people, interviews, tests and improvements for the next step. It won’t take me too long to reveal what is brewing. We are taking the bricks to the next level. What is certainly emerging in my experience is that LegoViews is an amazing method to reveal ideas because somehow those little bricks… Talk! Not only they talk, they also make people talking. For this reason, LegoViews is evolving in Talking Bricks. Stay tuned, more to come.
New original interviews with journalists, musicians, professionals, doctors and key figures are on their way, but in the meanwhile you can read the full interview with Mikado Warschawski, which has been published as an exclusive on the London Progressive Journal. The part published here is just the end of our talk, and Warschawski’s views about Palestine, his radical positions and the way he has been playing with LEGO are certainly of interest, both for the method and for the content.
My 2 bricks,
Pat
Aysar from Dheisheh Refugee Camp
Aysar is a young volunteer at Dheisheh Refugee Camp. He was born and grown up there and he studied at Bethlehem University. While introducing himself, he says he believes in some crazy ideas, and I am curious to learn more about them. When I show him the bricks, he is surprised: ‘You remind me about Parmenides… – he says and soon after he admits – ‘I’ve never played with this game…’ I let him play around with the LEGO bricks and then get straight into the question: What is Palestine? ‘What it should be or what it is?’ he asks. I repeat my question, those simple 3 words: What is Palestine. I am not giving him any clue, I want to see what Palestine is for him. The less I say, the more he’ll tell me. He is puzzled, he starts talking but I stop him and ask him to build me his answer ‘We’ll talk after…’ I reassure him. He starts building – he takes the bricks on and off, smokes and builds. After a while he is finished: he spreads all the left bricks around the model ‘Leave them’ he says ‘They are part of it’. ‘So this is Palestine… tell me something about your model’ I ask him. [Read more]
JK building his model
JK is an experienced business consultant from Israel. He is curious about this LegoView thing. I don’t waste too much time and get straight into the issue. What is Israel? – I ask him. He looks at me and at the bricks. ‘The question is tough!’ he says still puzzled, trying to make his mind while starting building his model.
JK's model of Israel
“Israel, as you can see, has a lots of parts within it… We have the sea, which is the blue part, we have the desert, which is the yellow, and we have the green, which is the forest and the wildlife and a flower here, and the orange is some colourful nature parts. We have our urban landscape and houses, which are the grey and the black bricks. You see – he shows me immediately – the structure is not very stable… it’s linked to some hazardous parts, which is the orange and the red… – he says pointing me out the little red and orange structure which lies next to the end of his model: it’s attached yet separate.‘So what is that?’ I ask him. ‘This is the hazard part of our life – he says – and it’s a substantial part of our life because you see that if you move it, the whole structure falls… So. it’s linked to us, maybe it’s even holding us, but if you move it, there’s the risk that the whole structure would bend, maybe not collapse, but bend. And there’s a ladder – he says pointing at the grey brick – we have to consider to use it or not to use to actually connect these risks.’
[Read More]
I’ve decided to apply the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY methodology to journalistic interviews and chose to explore and learn more about OccupyLSX through the use of LEGO . I have been around St. Paul’s camp looking for someone to involve in my experiment. And that’s when I’ve met Helen.
She is 17, she is studying textile, “I still go to the college from here in the morning, which is difficult because it’s freezing and it’s too cold to get up. It’s not nice.” she says with a smile.
I ask Helen to build me the first model, to let her familiarize with LEGO.
She looks at me and then she picks up the LEGO bricks and starts building something. When she has finished, I ask her to describe me what has she has built: “It’s a rainbow colour tower and it’s thin in the middle because it’s gonna collapse and it’s not like stable. It’s quite odd, I don’t know… And the flower on the top represent all of mankind, it’s kind of victorious.”
The tower has a thinner part, I investigate more and question Helen about that.
“Because it’s quite unstable, it’s not necessarily like a tower… it’s much like the world at the moment, it’s very unstable, it’s very unsustainable….”
She is smiling and is getting engaged with the LEGO, I ask her to build a model of the world as she sees it.
It takes some time, she puts the bricks together and when she is done, she starts telling me the story of the world through her model.
LegoViews 