Purpose: Have fun, interact globally with the on-line community, spark discussions on accessibility to lower priced LEGO sets. 

Goal: Collect Meaningful Data that can be shared with TLG and highlight the creativity of AFOLs with limited resources. 

Participants:  Anyone! Individuals, families, friends, all ages 

Project Timeline: January 2022 through December 31, 2022

Project Challenge: Each participant builds one polybag each month of the 2022 Calendar Year (January to December) and then adds the polybag contents to the previous months’ polybag contents to create a final build, scene or collection at the end of the year with all 12 bag contents. (Start at any time…) Purchase not necessary – sets can be used out of your collection, gift with purchase, gifted to you, or virtual building.

Full details for this project can be found on the Polybag Project 2022 page.

Data collection form

Facebook group

Firstly, a few words from Though Exchange:
“ThoughtExchange is a discussion management platform that helps communities have conversations at scale without compromising connection. Using anti-bias technologies, ThoughtExchange can help leaders get to the heart of the matter quickly with insight and guidance from groups impacted by those decisions.

ThoughtExchange is proud to support the Brick Alliance through its social impact partnership program.”

A fundamental part of Brick Alliance is engaging with members of the LEGO community, though this can be challenging with a diverse global audience. ThoughtExchange helps remove barriers to participation by offering a number of accessibility options including compatibility with screen readers and participant language selection. Brick Alliance recognizes that some of the topics covered may be personal to some participants, and ThoughtExchange helps us provide a safe space for people to share ideas and engage with each other using their anonymous and confidential platform. Brick Alliance will be using ThoughtExchange to engage with the LEGO community to see how they feel about particular topics and will use the information to guide future initiatives.

We use ThoughtExchange to engage with the AFOL community all over the world and the information we obtain informs our discussions with The LEGO Group. The flexibility of ThoughtExchange allows us to connect with AFOLs via our social media channels as well as at LEGO conventions (both in-person and online).

With members situated globally, we want to attend conventions around the world, as well as virtual conventions which have gained popularity due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far we have hosted a panel in October 2020 and a discussion group in December 2020 (for more details read this article).

While Brick Alliance was founded in July 2020, it has taken us until November 2021 to finalise the details around our community and formally launch. However, we are now fully set-up and ready to make an impact at future events.

This will be in the form of presentations on specific D&I topics related to the LEGO community, discussion groups, displays and more. We also plan to organise meet-ups so that you can connect with other like-minded LEGO fans.

We currently plan to attend 3 large conventions in 2022:

• BrickCan, (online for 2022, usually held in person in Vancouver), Canada – April 30th
• Brickworld Chicago, US – June 15th
• Skærbæk Fan Weekend, Denmark – September 23rd

We also plan on attending other events throughout 2022 and will let our members and followers know about these via our social media channels and newsletter.

It has come to the attention of the Brick Alliance that there have been multiple cases that could be considered cultural appropriation in products from The LEGO Group. This project seeks to compile all the cases we can find, then construct a document containing explanations about why these cases are cultural appropriation and actions The LEGO Group can take to ensure similar do not happen in the future. We then hope to share this document or present our findings to The LEGO Group via our direct contacts in the company.

Just one example is that of the Ancient Warrior minifigure from the Collectible Minifigure Series 21. Tips&Bricks reviewed the entire series and found that the Ancient Warrior minifigures has heavily inspired by the Nahua (commonly known as Aztec) Jaguar warriors. However, The LEGO Group chose to give the minifigure a generic name, missing an opportunity for education around the design’s inspiration.

Tips&Bricks was able to question The LEGO Group about this naming choice, and through the LEGO Ambassador Network received a statement in response:
“When designing minifigures, the team takes inspiration from a number of different sources and cultural references which we try to balance sensitively in how we name our characters. The Ancient Warrior minifigure is a creative representation of a number of different warrior references with just one of these being the Aztec Jaguar Warriors, so we needed to reflect this in our choice of name.”

There are a number of things wrong with their statement:

• By ‘creatively representing a number of different warrior references’ they did not respect the original inspiration which is clearly the Nahua Jaguar warriors. By mixing different ‘sources and cultural references’, this could be considered as cultural appropriation.
• No credit is given to any of their inspiration. In the LEGO community, if someone used your technique and didn’t even mention you as the original creator, you’d be annoyed right? None of these warrior references have been credited anywhere on LEGO’s website, which is very disappointing and we ask LEGO to do better in the future.
• The statement shows a general lack of knowledge around what is and isn’t appropriate when taking inspiration from cultural sources.

Information to back up our issues regarding cultural appropriation can be found here: https://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/sites/default/files/resources/teaching_resources/think_before_you_appropriate_jan_2016.pdf
https://litreactor.com/columns/taking-from-the-world-tree-mythology-and-cultural-appropriation
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cultural-appropriation-5070458

This is just one example of where LEGO has fallen short of where we would expect them to be. There are many more cases over LEGO’s history of producing plastic toys starting in 1949. And with more education and knowledge around cultural appropriation in today’s world, it is not okay for a multi-billionaire dollar company to still be making mistakes in this area.

Therefore, with this research project we will look to compile all the cases we can find, then construct a document containing explanations about why these cases are cultural appropriation and actions The LEGO Group can take to ensure similar do not happen in the future. We then hope to share this document or present our findings to The LEGO Group via our direct contacts in the company.

We would love your input on this topic, so if you are interested in assisting with this research project please contact Alex Johnson via email at contact.tipsandbrick@gmail.com who will be setting up this project in the near future.

The LEGO community can be a lot to keep up with. Whether it’s new sets being released, announcements directly from LEGO or content from community members, it can be hard to stay up to date with topics you’re interested in.

For those interested in Diversity and Inclusion within the community, we want to curate and distribute a monthly newsletter to share relevant news and information regarding this topic. Examples of these cases would be LEGO’s research into gender bias and Jay’s Brick Blog’s interview with Matthew Ashton where he shared that more sets championing D&I are on the way.

Additionally, the newsletter will also keep you up to date on new articles, projects and events from the Brick Alliance.

We already have a few members who are hoping to share the first newsletter in January 2022, but we welcome any additional help. This could be in the form of actually creating the newsletter (condensing information into concise wording), presenting the information (graphic design) or brainstorming ideas for content.

Please contact Barbara Hoel via email at barbara.hoel@gmail.com if you are interested in assisting with the newsletter.

Everyone has a story to tell about their LEGO journey.

Their first LEGO set. Whether they had a dark age. Their favourite LEGO memory. If they’re part of any physical or online communities. Their favourite LEGO set. What the hobby means to them.

Stories expose us to other’s experiences and viewpoints and are an invaluable way to develop empathy and understanding for others. We want to interview members of the community and share these stories, with a specific focus on our core values of diversity, inclusion and representation.

We will be asking for volunteers and sharing more information in 2022 regarding this project.