Voyage of 2,000 Ships combines myth and history to chronicle an epic voyage

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In the 14th century, Abu Bakr II led a fleet of 2,000 boats on an epic voyage from the west coast of Africa to unknown lands.

He was the ninth ruler of the medieval Mali Empire and the predecessor of Mansa Musa. He abdicated his throne for the trip. According to legend, the contingent arrived in America more than a century before Christopher Columbus arrived. Only a vague outline of this journey has been officially documented – it entered written history thanks to a Moroccan writer who chronicled Mansa Musa's dictation before him – but it was the starting point for Ghanaian Canadian artist Ekow Nimako's building in Toronto. Black Civilizations: The Voyage of 2,000 Ships, now on display at Glenbow in Edison through May 19.

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“Although the whole exhibition is largely speculative, the expedition and the man at the heart of it are real, historical figures,” Nimako said in an interview with Postmedia. “It was almost 100 years before Columbus's expedition. It really interested me, because when we think of the west coast of Africa, there is a common association – Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal – the transatlantic slave trade … I don't want to say when I think about it, the countries that come to mind, but centuries ago the big sail when ships are depicted, it often comes to mind because the west coast of Africa did not produce seafaring people. we think about it. It was very important for me to change that narrative and bring that great journey to the fore: bringing 2,000 ships, bringing sailors and warriors, artisans and families, and bringing all the culture with them, and they never came back. So what happened to them is a mystery.”

The exhibition is more than just the fanciful speculations of an artist who presents an Afrofuturist vision of black civilizations with a series of stunning sculptures made of black Lego bricks. This includes Banjul Bay (Abdication of Abu Bakr II) in Gambia and around the capital and fourth largest city of part of the Mali Empire. On the island where the Gambia River meets the Atlantic Ocean, the artist suggests that an epic journey may begin.

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The centerpiece of the exhibit, Asamando, takes its name from the Akan land of the dead, the nsmanfo, or underground abode of the ancestors. This snake-shaped city – believed by Akan snakes to be a vessel for spirits – suggests that the artist was the end of Abu Bakr II and his great fleet.

“I can imagine that there would be so many ships and so many people to leave the Kingdom of Mali at that time, it must have been amazing, shocking, but amazing,” says Nimako. “So for me it was a perfect well of mystery and mythology to start making speculative pieces. Well, let's say they're gone, what if they go here…what if it's like that when they're there?'

Banjul Bay used 120,000 Lego elements Asamando is needed 200,000. In total, Nimako's exhibit consists of more than one million black Lego elements. The artist has made popular plastic bricks the center of his work for more than ten years. Other artists, including Douglas Coupland, have used Lego as part of their artistic practice in the past, but not to this extent or to this extent. Nimako takes a monochromatic approach to his work and materials because he doesn't want his LEGO elements to be associated with the bright colors for which they are known.

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“It's rare that someone uses the material as a way to address the subject matter that I'm dealing with,” he says. “He rarely gets a chance to escape his iconography. Some artists who have used it use it in a way that they call it Lego. I'm trying to dispel the Lego myth. I look at it as an artist first and a Lego builder second, so the Lego material, the Lego elements, come second in my view. Of course, there are people who are passionate and the only reason they're interested is because it's made of material they really love, but for me it's important that the artistic perspective is central, the theme. matter and, of course, the formal qualities of the work.”

Nimako, who was born in Montreal, participated in international exhibitions and was recognized at a high level for his art. While the Lego angle is a surprising hook for those writing about the artist, his work focuses on imaginative and often provocative subjects. Building Black Civilizations: The Journey of 2,000 Ships Building Black Mythos: Gods and Black Amorphia Building: Spiritual Starships, related to working exhibits focused on black culture.

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“Creating Black Mythos explores mythological figures and narratives, Spiritual Origins focuses on West African mask-making traditions and incorporates interstellar craft into that formative process,” he says. “There was this idea that a lot of the science fiction that I was watching and consuming and being inspired by was not particularly diverse and inclusive. Additionally, many of these universes are stolen from other cultures, but the people of those cultures are often absent from these stories. Take Star Wars, for example: taking the clothes of Cambodian royalty to make their characters feel real and exotic, maybe and otherworldly, but they don't put people from those cultures in those movies or that culture.”

In Voyage of 2000 Ships, Nimako focuses on a “brave, black Muslim monarch who abdicates his throne in search of innovation to satisfy his curiosity.”

“Typically, when we hear about these journeys, it's often about god and country and capitalism and not without colonial interests, not without brutal genocide,” he says. “All these events, especially what I learned in history class, is European history, but don't really understand what's going on in African history and how you can learn more from these events. When they go out into the world, it's not about colonization, it's about building relationships and friendships. It's a common theme, and it's about expressing and exploring stories that aren't being told.”

Building Black Civilizations: A Voyage of 2,000 Ships runs through May 19 at Glenbow in Edison.

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