Jan Vormann (EU)

Jan Vormann’s global Dispatchwork project uses LEGO bricks to repair damaged walls. He describes the project as “a forum to further develop, piece by piece, a global game together”, one that encourages citizens to take back public space and leave their mark in a playful way. Some of the installations use a handful of toy bricks while others have used up to 30 kilos. Having started spontaneously patching-up surfaces in Bocchignano, Italy, Vormann has since employed the technique on walls in nearly 40 cities across Europe, Central America, Asia, and the United States.

 

Following his participation in Nuart Festival 2018, Vormann headed to Italy to present a new Dispatchwork at the Venice Architecture Biennal. He says “Dispatchwork aims to ignite childhood memories of abstract shapes and vivid colors, towards a global collaboration of persons unknown to each other. A handful of used bricks is all you need to submit a contribution to the project, as long as you don’t mind when the structures slowly ‘dissolve’ or ‘disappear’ back into children’s toyboxes”.

Martyn Reed, Nuart director and curator says:

 

“There’s something very basic about our need to build, to create our own worlds and to share them, this years theme, more on which later, explores this very foundational desire. Jan’s “Dispatchwork” series taps into this very basic human need in one of the most creative yet simple ways possible. The fact that he encourages others around the world to plagiarise the concept and join a growing international collaboration, rather than copyrighting and protecting the idea, says a lot about the ethos behind both the work and the man”

 

A founding member of the T10 Studios in Berlin, Jan Vormann is an artist, researcher and lecturer. He studied Visual Arts at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, Germany, as well as Monumental Arts at the Stieglitz Academy of Fine Arts in St.Petersburg, Russia. In addition to interventions in public spaces around the world, Vormann has presented his work at international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale of Art (2011) and Architecture (2018), the Nuart Festival Stavanger (2018), Ars Electronica in Linz (2010), the Nuits Blanches in Paris (2014). Vormann’s projects have been featured in global media outlets such as Le Monde, The New York Times Magazine, Deutsche Welle and Financial Times Deutschland.

 

janvormann.com
dispatchwork.info

Get Involved : Your Mission, should you accept it.

 

Dispatchwork is a multiplayer game for public spaces worldwide. It is far more than an urban intervention from a single artist: Hundreds of enthusiasts across the globe are participating -in broad daylight- in acts to rightfully claim their share of public space. Together, public and artist have infiltrated cultural heritage sites, facades and fortifications. From cottage to skyscrapers – Dispatchwork has sealed and healed cracks and fissures, completed decaying urban construction and added both people and colour to the greyscale of the cityscapes.

 

 

Dispatchwork aims to trigger childhood-memories of abstract shapes and vivid colors whilst building a global collaboration of strangers united in one cause – to share their time in helping to create a more playful and human city, free for a while- from the stresses of consumerism. This is an international “forum” designed to showcase your interventions in a global game, work by work, piece by piece. A handful used bricks of whichever brand is all you need, and then to submit a contribution to the link below of course. Get creating.

 

dispatchwork.info/mission

 

Because nobody enjoys living in dull cities and not only kids can imagine a more colourful world.

 

 

This film was shot on location for Nuart Festival 2018 in Stavanger by MZM Projects