Building Black AMORPHIA: Spiritual Starships

The latest series from Ghanaian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist and LEGO® sculptor, Ekow Nimako.

The 16 new artworks in this series thread together elements of West African mask-making traditions, science fiction, geometric figures and interstellar vessels to create an amorphous futuristic tapestry. The interlacing of natural elements and the primary geometric forms often associated with LEGO® evoke an aesthetic that is at times haunting, futuristic and simultaneously traditional.

The sculptures are influenced by the cultural, spiritual and political roles of masks in West African societies, as well as the symbolism they inherit of coming of age, death, birth and rebirth. The works embrace the particular challenge of articulating mood, expression and movement in the mounted visage of a mask. Familiar silhouettes take unpredictable, exciting turns, inspired by the evolving artistic tradition of Afrofuturism and the deliberate repurposing of both conventional and unconventional LEGO® elements. From a conceptual perspective, Nimako envisions the sculptures as biotechnological ancestral spacecrafts, whose cosmic journeys predate archetypal sci-fi narratives. This framing is significant since dominant worldbuilding tropes often rely on racialized cultural aesthetics, while depriving their constructed universes of textured, ethnic cohabitants.

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Host or Publisher Harbourfront Centre