The Blind Art Project, Created by LEGO

Munich’s Lenbachhaus art museum and gallery has incorporated a unique series of projects for blind and visually impaired children into its cultural education programme. Art and painting, which are generally the prerogative of sighted people only, are being made accessible to the project participants by encouraging them to recreate works of art themselves under the supervision of educational experts – using LEGO bricks. Prof. Helmut Friedel, Director of the Lenbachhaus, explains: “Right from the start, we thought that the idea developed by LEGO and Serviceplan of opening up access to art and painting for blind children with the ‘Blind Art Project’ was a fantastic one. The pilot workshop has already shown that this goal is perfectly achievable.”

In the “Blind Art Project”, educational experts from the museum describe every detail of a specific work to the children taking part. The art experts ask questions, draw comparisons, skilfully stimulate the children’s imaginations and support their intuition and understanding. The young creative artists then recreate the artwork using LEGO bricks in just the way that they imagine it. The results of the opening workshop, which focused on the painting “The Blue Horse” by Franz Marc, were impressive: “The children created the most imaginative masterpieces, from dream landscapes and horses to rainbows, and the colourful stories that were told in the discussion period afterwards demonstrated just how much the children had enjoyed the workshop,” says Friedel.
A documentary film gives a very moving account of all of this and numerous photos of the works of art that were created are also available to be admired on LEGO’s Facebook page.
Martina Augenstein, Head of Corporate Communications at LEGO GmbH, explains: “With the ‘Blind Art Project’ we are showing that you can build anything you can imagine with LEGO bricks. The tactile experience is particularly important, especially for blind children, and we are delighted to be working together with the Lenbachhaus on this.”
“Fine art, particularly painting, is something that is denied to people who are unable to see, but we have given blind people the opportunity to access art,” says Matthias Harbeck, Creative Director at Serviceplan Campaign.
Social awareness and supporting children, who are after all one of the most important pillars of our society, have always been firmly embedded in the philosophy of the Serviceplan Group – whether in the form of job application training for people from an immigrant background, free communications services for charitable institutions, or financial support for Munich’s Kinderkunsthaus (children’s art workshop). Special thanks must go to the Bayerischer Blinden- und Sehbehindertenbund e.V. (Bavarian association for the blind and visually impaired) for their assistance in the “Blind Art Project”.

Creative Credits:
Client: LEGO
Agency: Serviceplan
CCO: Alexander Schill
ECD: Matthias Harbeck
CD: Sandra Loibl, Oliver Palmer
Copy: Frank Seiler, Oliver Palmer
AD: Sandra Loibl, Jennifer Schwarzbauer
Account Direction: Monika Klingenfuss, Elias Kouloures, Lucie Bohn
Graphic Design: Sebastian Struppler
Photography, Video, Cutting, Producer: Stephon Karolus
Music & Sound Design: TRO GMbH
Sound studio: Giesing Team