Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has set up his first Lego brick collection point – a parked red car – in Beijing, after being inundated with offers of donations from supporters. Are you hoping to donate bricks? Tell us where and why.
Danish toy company Lego refused Ai’s bulk order of bricks for a new artwork about free speech for an Andy Warhol/Ai Weiwei exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia in December, because of its political content.
Social media users were quick to support Ai offering their own bricks to the artist and setting up #legoforaiweiwei. As offers of bricks began to pour in, Ai vowed to use the donations, tweeting to the Guardian “yes, I will find a way to accept”.
Ai announced in an Instagram post on Monday, alongside a photograph of a red car sunroof, that he would now create “a new work to defend freedom of speech and political art.”
The first Lego collection point – a red car – appears to have been set up outside the artist’s studio in Beijing.
Ai posted a photograph of the first donations promising “many more to come in different cities and locations, stay tuned.”
Ai has not disclosed the details of the piece he intended to make for the Australian show, but it is expected to be a version of a piece he first made for the prison island of Alcatraz last year. The piece used thousands of the plastic bricks to make floor mosaic portraits of prisoners of conscience and political activists, including Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Nelson Mandela.
Do you plan to donate Lego bricks to Ai Weiwei? Tell us why. Share your photographs, where you donated and your reasons for supporting the artist using GuardianWitness or email carmen.fishwick@theguardian.com
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