Hastings is about to be the setting of a sprawling, bricked city -- but don't worry, the picturesque vineyards the region is known for aren't about to be replaced by unsightly skyscrapers.
Instead, the area will host a township on a much smaller scale -- a minute metropolis built by locals from 50,000 pieces of Lego, inside the Hastings Art Gallery.
The "outlandish and titanic" exhibition has been hugely popular in galleries all over the world -- from Norway to New York -- and already landed on our shores in Wellington and Auckland.
But now it's about to arrive in Hawke's Bay, and more than 8000 people are expected to view and contribute to it.
"The work needs an audience's touch to be brought to life -- an unusual quality for a gallery work --and so it becomes about the people who make it," Hastings Art Gallery director Toni MacKinnon says.
"With this universal toy everyday people explore possibilities in building, engineering and design. The project becomes a shared celebration of creative play."
Danish artist Olafur Eliasson came up with the idea, which urges people to construct from Lego what they foresee as the city of the future, relying heavily on audience participation.
The exhibition will be in place from June 4, and will be available to view and add to until August 28.
Newshub.
