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The popular art event will be constructed of more than 1 million LEGO bricks and will comprise of more than 70 works of art.

Credit: nathansawaya.com

ATLANTA — One of the world's most renowned immersive art shows is coming to Atlanta after the city was selected to host the entertainment event on Wednesday.

Art of the Brick Immersive Experience, a LEGO art exhibit, will make its world premiere on April 18-19 at the all-new 50,000-square-foot Exhibition Hub Atlanta Art Center in Doraville.

The popular art event will be constructed of more than 1 million LEGO bricks and will comprise of more than 70 works of art from distinguished award-winning LEGO artist Nathan Sawaya, in what is described as a "fully-immersive experience."

The Art of the Brick is a first-of-its-kind experience, according to Sawaya's website, as it features large-scale sculptures that are only built using LEGO bricks. Sawaya is also the first artist to use LEGO building as an art medium for an exhibition, his website states.

The immersive environment during the exhibit will be embodied through 3D mapping and will be amplified by a "soaring musical score."

Among the sculptures to be featured include: A giant version of "Yellow" will be unveiled -- Sawaya's most prominent sculpture, as well as "Perniciem," which highlights endangered species in their natural environments. Perniciem is Latin for ruin, disaster and health.

Credit: nathansawaya.com

Nathan Sawaya's famous "Yellow" sculpture made entirely out of LEGOs.

"Nathan is the world's foremost LEGO artist," said Mario Iacampo, CEO and creative director of Exhibition Hub. "It is our honor to now help take Nathan's work to an even higher level with a totally immersive canvas worthy of his genius.”

Exhibition Hub is a curator, producer and distributor of different large art exhibitions across the globe, according to its website.

“We’re finally coming to Atlanta!” Sawaya said. “We’ve wanted to bring our tour here for years and now is the perfect time with a brand new collection of LEGO-inspired art installation, sculptures and multimedia color creations. I’m so happy Atlanta will get the first look at my new, complex works that have been meticulously designed to trigger childhood memories of play and creativity while also evoking something more cerebral.”

Sawaya will be in Atlanta to greet guests at the show in mid-April, according to a release.

Tickets for the exhibition will officially go on sale on March 28 at 11 a.m. EST, but those who want to enter a waitlist to obtain early access to buying tickets can click here to do so.

The Atlanta Braves have been the beneficiary of a stacked farm system throughout their run of five straight division titles, with players like Ronald Acuna Jr. and Michael Harris II coming in to have immediate impacts on the team. However the system is notably weakened from those early days and the question now is whether they can once again find rookie magic.

Which top prospect will have the biggest impact on the major league team this season?

Matt: This one is tough because I don’t see any prospect having a big impact this year considering all of the graduations from the system last year. I’d have to go with Dylan Dodd though as he’s close to Atlanta and the way teams go through arms each year, he should get some opportunities to help the big club in 2023.

Devin: Like Matt, I do not see any impact prospects who are going to play for the big league club this season. I think 2020 first round pick Jared Shuster will play at the MLB level at some point this year and will be the most impactful. He is 24 and started 9 games at the Triple-A level last season so he very well might be the first or second pitcher up for Atlanta if multiple pitchers were to go down due to injury.

Brady: The timing of this question in particular is interesting given the recent options of Bryce Elder and Ian Anderson to Gwinnett. Before the two were optioned, I would have most-likely gone with either Jared Shuster or Dylan Dodd given their experience at Triple-A and the need for a 5th starter. However, you could have opted to go with Braden Shewmake — who has looked spectacular this spring I might add — or another guy in the upper ranks of the minors. But given the options of Anderson and Elder, it’s almost certain one of Shuster or Dodd will be the guy making the largest impact in Atlanta this year. But since I have to pick on — and I know this will be SUPER redundant — I believe the Braves will opt to give their former first-round pick the bulk of the opportunities over Dodd to start, so I’ll take Shuster.

Garrett: If you had asked me this question last season I would have not even considered Michael Harris or Vaughn Grissom, yet one year later and it is clear that sometimes crazy things can happen. Still, I really don’t see a player of either theirs or Spencer Strider’s caliber that’s able to come up and immediately impact the team. Of the group my pick would be Dylan Dodd, and his fantastic spring along with the struggles of Ian Anderson make it a real possibility for him to earn a fifth starter spot. Dodd has a funky delivery and a deep arsenal of pitches based around his plus fastball that could give hitters trouble especially with data currently fairly limited in that regard. As to the shortstop situation I really don’t see Braden Shewmake being that guy barring an injury, but he and Jared Shuster are certainly worth keeping an eye on. However I feel between those obvious three Dodd has the highest ceiling.

The Atlanta Braves have made some shocking decisions in recent days regarding their shortstop position. Could the Braves continue to shift the look of their roster at the position through a trade?

When the Atlanta Braves decided to option both Vaughn Grissom and Braden Shewmake to Triple-A, it left shortstop in the hands of Orlando Arcia to start the 2023 season. Arcia is certainly capable of handling the position, slashing .244/.316/.416 primarily in a role where he started at second base (43 games) while also working as an option in left field and third base. His backup looks to be Ehire Adrianza, who posted a .154/.313/.231 slash line after being traded by the Washington Nationals to the Braves at last year’s MLB trade deadline.

It’s unclear exactly how long Grissom and Shewmake could be in Triple-A, as well as what will need to happen for Grissom to return to the big role he held with the team last season in the absence of Ozzie Albies. However, it is clear that the Braves could use some help with depth at the shortstop position until that time comes.

Could Atlanta Braves make a trade with Colorado Rockies to improve depth at shortstop?

During the recent World Baseball Classic, Alan Trejo, who has played in 63 games over the last two seasons in Colorado, held down shortstop for Team Mexico, and did it with plenty of sparkling reviews about his play.

Alan Trejo’s arm.

Wow.

He can be one of the best defensive shortstops in @MLB.@MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) March 15, 2023

As discussed in this article, Trejo is projected by FanGraphs to begin the 2023 season as a backup infielder for the Rockies. Colorado believes it has found its long-term answer at shortstop in rookie Ezequiel Tovar while second base (the other position where Trejo played primarily last season) is being held down by former Gold Glove finalist Ryan McMahon. There will seemingly be few chances (outside of injury) for Trejo to play in 2023 or potentially beyond, given the depth the Rockies already possess up the middle.

Given that and Atlanta’s need at shortstop to begin the season, could the two teams work out a swap similar to the one that recently brought outfielder Sam Hilliard from the Mile High City to the Deep South? In a one-for-one November trade, Hilliard was sent to Atlanta in exchange for minor league pitcher Dylan Spain, who pitched at High-A Rome last season. Could a format be the same for a Trejo trade, with Atlanta sending Double-A pitcher Hayden Deal to Colorado for the the 26-year-old shortstop?

Trejo has a considerable amount of team control left (through the 2029 season) and has shown he can hit MLB pitching, slashing .271/.312/.424 with four homers and 17 RBI in 125 plate appearances last year. If the Braves or any other team want to bring him on through a trade, the Rockies will be looking for something of value in return.

With Dansby Swanson now in Chicago, Atlanta is taking a new direction with its shortstop position to open the season. Perhaps a new face could help the club find its footing there sooner than later.

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Life must be pretty good for the Atlanta Braves. They can kick back and watch all the headlines be about the New York Mets and their Correa fiasco, or the Mets and their Edwin Diaz fiasco, or the Philadelphia Phillies signing Trea Turner without really solving the problem that their outfield will look like demolition derby most nights.

Sure, there was the divisional round loss when Spencer Strider went boom and Brian Snitker kind of fell asleep on it. But if the Braves’ ninth-inning rally in Game 1 had produced just one more run, maybe they bounce that series back to Atlanta and White Flight Park for a Game 5. On such margins…

This is still a 101-win team, which backed up their World Series-winning team. The Braves didn’t have to do much, and they didn’t really. Their big moves were to swap out catcher William Contreras for Sean Murphy and then laugh maniacally at the Cubs when they decided to overpay Dansby Swanson, the one homegrown product the Braves watched walk out the door and then went back to playing Galaga. Murphy is the better overall player than Contreras or an aging Travis d’Arnaud, but he’ll do well to match Contreras’s over-his-head production last year (138 wRC+). d’Arnaud as a backup is a fine thing, though.

Other than that, the Braves themselves are pretty much running it back much like the Mets, just without the noise and not having to replace nearly as much like-for-like as New York did. Their questions are in left and at DH, where both Eddie Rosario and Marcell Ozuna are decomposing (which is a good thing in Ozuna’s case). Vaughn Grissom didn’t take the shortstop job in spring training so he’ll start the year in AAA but will be the starting SS before too long one imagines. Grissom hit well in his cameo last year (.291/.353/.440) but was pretty paddle-handed at second base. So even when he does come up from the minors it’s a mystery whether he can handle short every day. This and the brief interlude of Orlando Arcia is still what the Braves preferred to paying Swanson. Still, it’s the one spot in the lineup where the Braves lost something and haven’t really replaced it, and may be something they feel they need to address come the trade deadline if Grissom never finds it. They also lost some depth when Adam Duvall toddled off to Boston, and the bench will pretty much be Arcia eventually and Kevin Pillar to occasionally run into a wall.

The top four of the rotation return intact, and also intact is Michael Soroka’s inability to stop eating the cursed frogurt as he’s on the IL again with hamstring troubles. Ian Anderson pitched himself out of the fifth spot and looks set to be replaced by top prospect Jared Schuster (has there ever been a more Braves name than “Jared Schuster?”). Charlie Morton will turn 40 right after the season and started to look it last year as hitters had far more success sending his pitches into someone’s beer cup out beyond the various walls of MLB. They’ll hope to shove him down the pecking order if Spencer Strider can throw more than 130 innings, Kyle Wright gains more experience, and maybe Soroka can locate the gremlin that lives in his house and finally slay it and change his fortunes.

They rid themselves of Kenley Jansen in the pen, turning things over full-time to A.J. Minter, and found one of the few useful Tigers in Joe Jimenez via trade (he struck out a third of the hitters he faced last year and you assuredly didn’t hear about it).

Everything about the Braves seems standard now. The core of this roster is basically locked in until Fried hits free agency after the 2024 season. Even with their holes in left and DH and short, they’re so good everywhere else that they can basically sleepwalk to 95 wins. The rotation’s questions are all at the bottom and fixable.

The Mets still lack some power and the top of their rotation has a combined age of Gandalf. The Phillies will be missing their best player for half the season and will treat the baseball like it’s covered in scorpions selling knives a lot of nights. And the Braves just hum along.

I’ll just say it now, I could write one heck of an article from the chat we had with DJ EU last night. This is why we truly enjoy bringing Atlanta guests like EU, Kevin Egan, Andrew Gutman, and plenty of others on the show because it’s our way of connecting the dots between the fanbase and the people who help make this club such a massive force in the North American soccer landscape. Much of that big club energy is owed to the 17’s and the matchday atmosphere Atlanta United offers...there’s a reason why so many players want to come to the Deep South to play. This episode struck the right chord in so many ways.

DJ EU is one of those folks who has been there since the very beginning, as a Founding Member no less, and the story of how he got involved with Atlanta United is truly fascinating. From winning the Red Bull Thre3Style DJ Atlanta qualifier in 2013, to the first Five Stripe kit reveal at the Tabernacle, to hammering the Golden Spike at the Campeones Cup against Club America, to being a full-time feature involved in the matchday vibes, he’s been around the block. If you’ve been to the Benz at any point in the last seven years, you’ve heard the music and life he brings to each Five Stripes’ home match.

He spent Wednesday evening chatting with the Scarves and Spikes crew about his new involvement with the club, his favorite Atlanta United moment, the production behind the laser show at the AmFam Cup, the relationships he’s developed over the years with all the players as they’ve come through, and so much more.

It was a must-see, must-listen episode as he recounted various moments in the Five Stripes’ short history from his point of view, and it offered a very unique look into the club from the other side of the DJ booth. For example, if the below tweet doesn’t give you some inspiration - knowing everything that’s happened since 2017 - I’m not sure how to help you feel good feelings.

Hey @ATLUTD I would like to be your DJ for the games. Thank you

— DJ EU (@DJEU) March 6, 2017

As if that wasn’t enough, there was an actual show, too! The guys recapped the 5-1 win over Portland, checked off all the Atlanta United news from the week, gave some insight into this weekend’s match vs Columbus, and gave their predictions for the Downpour Derby. Who knows, maybe the weather will behave in Ohio this time. Check it all out below!

Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scarvesnspikes and on YouTube for plenty of extra content. Follow Tyler, Tommy, and Sydney while you’re at it.

Watch live every Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET on YouTube, on Twitch, or on Twitter, or the live stream replay immediately following the show.

As a quick side note, our Scarves and Spikes show along with Joe and Sam’s Five Stripe Final will be undergoing a slight change in the audio format. The podcast channel will now be known as the Atlanta Soccer Podcast Network going forward, formerly the Dirty South Soccer Podcast Network. This isn’t changing the content we all bring nor will you need to do anything on your pod catcher of choice to continue receiving episodes...it’s just that the name will be different. We’ll all still be here on DSS with our articles and content, but the podcast feed just had to make a few updates.

With that being said - search “Atlanta Soccer Podcast Network” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your podcast app of choice to subscribe and follow there, as well.