Join us for an exciting conversation between exhibiting artist Ekow Nimako and local writer, educator, and researcher, Ashley Marshall. Together, Ekow and Ashley will discuss how the exhibition Building Black Civilizations: Journey of 2,000 Ships re-imagines ancient African kingdoms through an Afrofuturist lens. Digging into histories of the African diaspora and envisioning abundant Black futures, this conversation will shed light on Ekow’s artistic practice and the inspiration and imagination that produced the exhibition.

This event is free and open to everyone. Seating will be provided for all guests.

Read more about the exhibition, Building Black Civilizations: Journey of 2,000 Ships, here.

For more information on our facilities, please click here. If you have questions about the event or other requests, please email Hannah at [email protected].

Ekow Nimako is a Toronto-based, internationally exhibiting LEGO artist who crafts futuristic and whimsical sculptures from the iconic medium. Rooted in his childhood hobby and intrinsic creativity, Nimako’s formal arts education and background as a lifelong multidisciplinary artist inform his process and signature aesthetic. His fluid building style, coupled with the Afrofuturistic themes of his work, beautifully transcend the geometric medium to embody organic and fantastical silhouettes.

Ashley Marshall is a Durham-based writer, educator, and researcher. Their research critiques how power, economics, and politics influence social change, while advocating for imagination and creativity as alternatives to neoliberal market logics. Her work aims to use collaborative measures to dissect and render visible the various social and material flows that (re)produce hegemonic power structures and dismantle them. Marshall reviews art for Rungh Magazine, is a former Board member of The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and is an advocate for the arts. With a penchant for Black surrealism, fabulism, the speculative, and foodie fiction, Marshall’s work is interested in what we can learn from nature to think towards humane frameworks. 

Building Black Civilizations: Journey of 2,000 Ships is organized and circulated by Dunlop Art Gallery.