Following world globalization, Lego becomes one of the consumerism collective memories of our society. Manufacturing, advertising, branding, contains all features of capitalism which fulfil our “society of the spectacle” and turns us into “the lonely crowd”. Environmental and cultural pessimism follow behind—pollutant emissions, climate change, or deforestation.

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What is collective memory? Collective memory is shared memories, knowledge and information of a social group that is associated with the group’s identity which appears in culture and activity. Like a sculpture in a public space, the work experiments the relationship between public sculpture, consumerism and the public while encountering. 

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This sculpture preserves memories of today for the public in future. In Rachel Whiteread’s Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial (2000), it is shown that a public sculpture is able to carry collective memories. Since the public sculptures are constructed in manipulation by the government, the interpretation of the memories can be found ideologically. Deimantas Narkevičius’ Once in the XXth Century (2004) amplified the subversive nature of recalling the past by back running the footage of the removal of a monumental public sculpture of Lenin in Lithuania, and thus the public seems to celebrate the erection of the sculpture. Therefore, history is to be constructed retroactively, and the collective memory of the past is to be presented in the symbolized form of public sculpture.

 

In Collective Memories, bricks cast in plaster withhold the current state of our present, presenting newspaper, plastic bottles, electronic components and tin cans which all caused pollution to our planet. Plaster, as a material uneasy to decay, will preserve this rubbish collected from the street all the way into the future.