Join us on Friday, January 24th, for our monthly Seniors Tour. This month, follow Executive Director and curator, Catherine Crowston, through this wonderfully unique exhibition Building Black Civilizations: Journey of 2,000 Ships showcasing Ekow Nimako’s impressive works, which use Lego® bricks as medium.
This exhibition also includes an interactive building area to explore your own curiosity and building skill.
This tour is for self-identified seniors and is free with admission. Capacity for the event is 30 so reserve your tickets early.
Seniors’ Tours are offered monthly and organized by the AGA’s Aging Artfully Advisory Committee.
Accessibility notes: We have a whisper audio guide system with headsets available. These wearable transmitters allow visitors to listen to the tour guide without straining to hear or being distracted by ambient noise in the galleries. If you pause to contemplate an artwork longer, you won’t miss what the tour guide says next.
About the Exhibition:
Building Black Civilizations: Journey of 2,000 Ships continues artist Ekow Nimako’s afrofuturistic reimagining of ancient African kingdoms. Using Lego® bricks as his medium, Nimako explores the mysterious 14th century sea voyage of Abu Bakr II, predecessor of Mansa Musa, ruler of the Mali Empire. According to legends, Abu Bakr II was an intrepid explorer, who abdicated his throne and took 2,000 ships on an expedition into the Atlantic, but was never to return or be heard from again. Some accounts suggest the massive fleet reached as far as the Americas, but where they went beyond this is still unknown.
Combining architecture, historical account, and fantastical possibilities, Nimako transcends the geometric form of Lego® to recreate the epic voyage and in doing so, presents an uninterrupted and uncoopted narrative of Black civilizations, imagining liberated futures.