Artist Sean Kenney has built nature-themed sculptures with LEGO bricks set around the botanical garden at Riverbanks Zoo.

The Nature Connects exhibit has been hosted at numerous gardens, zoos and science centers around the world since 2012, Kenney wrote to the Carolina Reporter.  He said the LEGO artworks are metaphorical, representing the links between nature and everyday life. 

“Whether you’re trimming a bonsai tree or planting a garden, or anything else: You are a part of nature,” Kenney wrote in an email. “It is important to me that each individual sculpture attempts to illustrate the ‘connections’ found in nature, whether a predator-prey relationship, mankind’s relationship with nature or even the parent-child relationships you see in the wild.”

Each sculpture displays a short description of each item, whether they’re animals, plants or humans, as well as the number of hours it took for the sculpture to be made. 

The exhibition aims to explore themes of conservation, endangered species and the balance of ecosystems, according to a news release from Riverbanks Zoo & Garden. 

But Kenney said he isn’t an outdoorsy person, conservationist or climate scientist. The familiarity within everyday relationships is how he wants people to understand and ultimately protect our environment, making them everyone’s concern and not only people interested in nature. 

“Our iPhones are made from ore and sand,” Kenney said. “Our furniture is trees. We occupy land. We feed plants every time we exhale. We are a part of nature, whether we realize it or not.” 

Since Kenney has four other traveling exhibitions with different themes, the topics he addresses are often global, he said. He said was in Taiwan, for example, where he created a sculpture of a local, extinct creature to represent the country’s issue with the mass harvesting of trees and diminishing territory for animals. 

“This really resonated with the local Taiwanese audience, but more broadly, the topic of mankind’s encroachment on habitats rings true across the globe,” Kenney said. 

Taiwanese visitors also found comfort in the design and layout as well, with sculptures spread around the garden, he said.

Recent Riverbanks visitor Beth Hostetler said she and her family are from Ohio, and visiting Columbia as part of a vacation. Although her family members have seen prior nature exhibits, Hostetler said the layout and design of each sculpture are impressive. 

“You can be having the worst day of your life, and I can’t imagine walking into this and not being happy or seeing some beauty in it,” she said. 

Hostetler said a local friend of hers walks through the garden, instead of her neighborhood, frequently to reach her step goal because of the aesthetic of the garden.

“If I’m trying to get my 10,000 steps, I’d rather do it in the zoo,” Hostetler said. “She just comes here multiple times a week just because, ‘Why not walk in someplace beautiful rather than your neighborhood?’”

The LEGO sculptures bring a youthful presence to the garden, said visitor Sarah Neely, who has two children, a 5-year-old and 8-year-old.  

“I think that’s really neat, because a lot of children are into LEGOs, so it’s a neat way to get them in this part, because they already love the animals, but it’s another area that they can visit,” Neely said. 

Kenney said art’s intricacies are also what he wants people to understand, so hopefully everyone can experience a unique, artistic viewpoint. 

“There are so many parts of your personality that you can pull from and look at subject matter through your own lens,” Kenney said. “I am never content to just ‘make a thing.’ That thing has to be doing something special, or highlighted in a way that is interesting to me.”

The Columbia exhibition is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at 500 Wildlife Parkway and is included with admission or membership, according to spokesperson Matt Perron. The exhibition closes on Feb. 20, 2026.