When the recent Everyone is Awesome set was released celebrating diversity and inclusion, it was a huge moment. While it certainly had its detractors, a large swath of LEGO fans, particularly those in LGBTQIA+ community were thrilled. A set that celebrates Pride Month coming from the largest toy company in the world was quite a statement. The fact that it was created by the openly gay Senior VP of Design at LEGO, Matthew Ashton, made it even more meaningful. Taking the set as inspiration, my husband and LEGO Masters partner Richard and I began a month-long build challenge on Instagram using the hashtag #rainbowbuildchallenge. As of the writing of this article there have been over 500 individual builds focusing on the joyful message the set represents.
For our contribution, we decided to forge some new territory for us: the greebled mosaic. It’s something we’ve wanted to tackle for a while and this seemed the perfect opportunity. It was quite an interesting challenge and pointed to the fact that some colors just don’t have a huge variety of interesting parts. The bright light blue section was quite difficult to complete and oddly, so was brown (at least in our collection). We still managed to fill a 48×48 baseplate with enough objects to provide some interesting texture and a sort of “I spy” game. In keeping with the original messaging of the Everyone is Awesome set, we used the monochrome figures from it, laying head to head around a central focused heart. We imagined them all lying down together, staring at the sky and thinking of a world where everyone feels included and represented.
If you would like to participate in the Rainbow Build Challenge, you can find a post about it on our Instagram page.
