Dropping a LEGO Vase – After Ai Weiwei (2026)
Dropping a LEGO Vase – After Ai Weiwei reinterprets the relationship between an object, its cultural value and the act of destruction. Taking inspiration from Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995), Scott recreates the gesture using a vase constructed from LEGO bricks. A material associated with childhood, creativity and the possibilities of building becomes the subject of an act that deliberately undoes what has been made.
The work explores the uncertain boundary between creation and destruction, asking what happens when an object is released from its intended purpose. LEGO is designed around the possibility of continual construction: pieces can be assembled, dismantled and reassembled, with each configuration offering the potential for another. Yet the act of dropping the vase interrupts this familiar cycle, introducing an outcome that cannot be entirely controlled or reversed in the same way.
For Scott, the work also reflects on play as a space for experimentation, risk and uncertainty. Rather than treating creativity as a process directed towards a predetermined result, the gesture opens up the possibility that something unexpected might emerge from the decision to let go. The work is both a homage to Ai Weiwei and an exploration of what it means to take play seriously enough to question its rules, its materials and its outcomes.