LEGO refuses to supply Ai Weiwei with the bricks he needs for an installation on freedom of expression consisting in 176 portraits of such political prisoners. The refusal prompts the hashtag #legosforweiwei.

Ai Weiwei posts a photograph of a toilet bowl filled with LEGO bricks and signed R. Mutt in an ironic reference to Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain.

On 13 January 2016 LEGO backtracks over the use of its building blocks “for political purposes”. The blocks can now be shipped without restriction to anyone who orders them.