New | Lego Occupy Central display recreates protests in miniature detail
Occupy Central has been captured in minute detail in Admiralty where a protester has recreated scenes from the protests in a display made with Lego figures.
Occupy Central has been captured in minute detail in Admiralty where a protester has recreated scenes from the protests in a display made with Lego figures.
Natalie Chan, a 25-year-old sales representative, has spent the past week remaking notable moments of the movement, including the alleged police beating of protester Ken Tsang Kin-chiu. She has also included details like individual face masks for Occupiers and blue ribbons for anti-Occupy protesters, made by hand from bits of paper.
“The hardest part was making the blue ribbons for the anti-Occupy protesters so people can distinguish between the miniature figures,” Chan, who has spent the last 10 nights at Admiralty, said.
“I had to make blue ribbons or umbrellas for almost every ‘minifig’. Yesterday people started making plastic armbands to protect themselves from the police, so I had to add those. Details like the shrink wrap take a lot of time too.”
Chan said she got the idea for a Lego production because she wanted to step back and review the Occupy movement.
“I wanted to pull myself out of the situation to see if I would get a different perspective on what’s happening in society or think deeper about this whole movement,” she said.
“I’ve got nothing better to do when I’m here at night and making this scene can help people understand the protests more, so I think it’s meaningful.
“The ‘minifigs’ represent how I feel.”
That includes Chan’s sense of humour. For example, one Lego protester holds an umbrella like a javelin to poke fun at pro-government lawmaker Leung Che-cheung, who last week argued that umbrellas are more aggressive weapons than tear gas.
Chan plans to continue protesting and expanding the Lego scene, as long as the government refuses to budge on protesters’ demands for genuine universal suffrage.
“I don’t have much to look forward to about the talks [between the government and Federation of Students] tomorrow, because the government has made it clear they’re not shifting their position, so I think it’ll continue to be a stalemate,” she said.
“As long as we don’t have genuine universal suffrage and there are other people taking a stand, I’m not going to leave either.”
Chan added that although she likes handicrafts, she’s not a diehard Lego fan:
“I think I’ve played with enough Lego this week to last a lifetime.”
