[dramatic music]
- So this has my name etched in gold.
This is my signature piece.
This is what completes an artwork.
- [Narrator] Meet Ekow Nimako,
a Ghanaian Canadian artist making breathtaking art
outta black Lego bricks.
- My entire life I've probably clicked hundreds of thousands
of parts, probably millions.
Are you serious?
It's Lego.
It's never Legos.
And Lego actually is an abbreviated form of leg godt
which is Danish for play well.
Little known fact.
[gentle music]
- [Narrator] Ekow's jaw dropping sculptures
are exhibited in galleries,
but they begin in DIY studios at his home.
- Welcome to Studio A.
The first of my three studio rooms.
This is where I build most of my
building black mythos artworks.
Really an exploration of black African mythology.
This one, I'm actually not sure
what this sculpture is going to be.
I know it will be a goddess.
I know that she will have these kind of cornrows going on.
This tubing was not made to be hair,
but when I look at parts now, I just see different parts
of anatomy that just like speak out to me.
This artwork so far,
I think I've clocked in almost a hundred hours.
Some artworks could take up to a thousand hours.
- Well some of Ekow's larger pieces can take
a thousand hours, he could prototype a new smaller design
from scratch in just a day.
- So we're in Studio C, it's where I'm building my series
building Black amorphia, spiritual star ships.
So I'm going to build a spiritual star ship today.
The idea behind it is that we are,
take inspiration from science fiction,
but at the same time it's very important for me to
centralize black characters, black stories,
black history within that context.
So I'll be taking the form of the T47 air speeder
and turning it into an ancestral vessel.
So let's have some fun.
Alright, let's see.
Once the spine is completed,
I'll look at some reference photos of the ship
and then start constructing the wing shape.
Dropping Lego is actually the most annoying thing.
People think that stepping on Lego
is like the most annoying thing,
but to me the most annoying thing is spilling them outright.
Just knocking a container over
and it just spills everywhere.
You see what I mean?
Like the rage that fills up when I'm just like trying
to get something done and then shit just scatters, ugh.
- [Narrator] While dropping pieces is a frustration,
Ekow still needs to keep a massive amount of parts on hand
to actualize his sculptures.
- Each of my studios has a section
that is dedicated to the parts.
This is studio B.
You gotta love that.
This piece right here is a jumper.
It has a stud or a notch right in the center
in opposed to a piece like this,
which would naturally have two studs on it.
Over here I've got various different tires.
The Lego group actually produces the most tires
in the world, more than Goodyear, more than Michelin,
'cause their tires are actually made of rubber,
so they're classified as actual tires.
Oh yes, the hinge with the ball joint.
What this hinge joint allowed is for me to put
these fairings anywhere I want.
You got your standard tiles.
I like to cover all the notches and studs on my work.
Triangle tile allows you to get some great
geometric patterns when you put them all together.
These are always great, inverted tiles.
The beauty of inverted parts is that they click
from the bottom up.
Now I do wanna find like a discontinued part like this.
Look at the design.
It's one of those pieces that I would have
to even second guess if I saw it sitting down there
and wonder if it actually is a Lego element.
I think I only have one of these in my entire collection
and I've got like millions of parts.
The most common reaction when I tell people what I do
is usually excitement.
There's this kind of oh my god you get to do what you love.
It is amazing.
More importantly, it's a privilege.
You know, a metric of if you love what you do
is when people say, if you won the lottery,
would you still do what you do?
And mine would be yes, I would just get a bigger studio,
more staff and build bigger things.
This piece is called Kadeesa.
Kadeesa is a dragon cat
and dragon cats are creatures that I came up with.
I've always been fascinated with avian creatures.
I took some inspiration from the griffin
and made this feline cat with wings.
- [Narrator] These lengthy builds are not just reflective
of Ekow's artistic talent, but also a lifetime love of Lego.
- I started building with Lego when I was about three
or four years old.
I started off inheriting Lego from my older brother.
It just had this appeal to me
because you can create the things you don't have.
If I see something that I wanted,
then I would be able to satisfy that urge
by going to my Lego collection and building something
that would just placate me.
So when I first started building, it was purely for fun.
Eventually it got elevated to an art form.
In 2007 though is when I had this resurgence
of interest in building
and I just realized how fun it was again
and it just kind of stayed with me a little bit closer
from that point.
And then by 2012, 2013, I was really trying to make my mark
as an artist and the two things just kind of came together.
This artwork is very special to me
because I've had this artwork since I began my career.
I created this artwork when she was about
the size of a six year old.
Since then, it has evolved.
What I most enjoy about this artwork is the hair.
Like this cylindrical piece is great.
Hole in the top, hole in the bottom,
and they have weight that when you have so much volume
of hair, there's just like a gravity to it.
And when it comes to black people, our hair is political.
For all the people that are gonna see this work
and be inspired by it,
to have their identity reinforced from a material
that historically underrepresented them, it means a lot.
So making the formal outlines and the shape of a mask
is like the first step.
And then once the shape is laid out,
then all the fun stuff really starts happening.
Where you get to like start giving it
some kind of personality.
It can be grueling work sometimes,
and you know, my joints have suffered from building.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is real.
- [Narrator] But all the pain is worth it for Ekow
to make these textured works of art.
- This sculpture is called Kweku Ananse.
Kweku Ananse is an Akan deity, a trickster god.
My favorite feature, I really like the crown.
The main center part of the crown is a combination
of two different parts
and they're both discontinued if I'm not mistaken.
I always think it's really fascinating when I'm able
to use discontinued parts
because there's something more rare about it.
There's only so many of them left on the world.
Ananse took me, I'd say about 300 hours plus
over like a long period of time.
So start thinking about the eyes
when it comes to expression.
Yeah, there's something about the personality
that can be found in our eyes.
So there's something here.
This eye outline looks animated to me.
Okay, so we've got this pair of eyes
and I also did like some structural stuff
so that I can place a nose in there.
Right now just laying down some tiles.
Tiles are great because you can put something down
on the tiles and then like kind of slide it
and shift it so you know exactly where you want it to sit.
And then once you do, you start building things
that will kind of keep it in place.
I think just about there.
You know, as you're building along you wanna make sure
that you're not just building for filler at any point.
The problem with Lego building too is that you run the risk
of doing too much, which is what in my opinion,
90% of people that build with Lego, they do.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Couldn't tell you what set had these created, I don't know.
But when I see these things, I don't buy sets a lot.
I buy parts and they speak to me not as what they are,
but as what they could be.
Alright, we're almost there.
One good way to get a metric of how far I have to go
is how many studs do you see?
Just need to add a couple more pieces on here.
So this is the final piece.
This has my name etched in gold.
This is what completes an artwork.
The last click is always satisfying.
[funky music]
This piece is not titled yet.
Usually the titles take a little while to come to me.
I like that it maintained the aerodynamic shape
of the T47 air speeder,
but at the same time, when you look at this mask,
you don't automatically associate it with
a Star Wars vessel.
For me, when I look at it,
all I see are the faces of my ancestors.
When creating masks, I have a certain kind of freedom
that I don't typically have with the rest of my works.
Because there's no body to the face
I have the freedom to make the eyes as large as I want.
I have the freedom to create these kind of like eyebrows
using these fin like pieces.
- [Narrator] No matter how many hours Ekow spends
building these marvelous pieces of art,
he's always looking to the future both in his work
and in the Lego community.
- Always been a futurist, imagining liberated futures
for black people and for all people ultimately.
I think the Lego group has gotten a lot better in regards to
how inclusive and diverse they are,
but growing up it was a completely different story.
The interesting thing about the Lego verse,
especially when it's rooted in like the yellow mini figure,
the Simpsons taught me, you know, that yellow is synonymous
with white, but just like any kind of equity work,
there's always more and it's a long road.
But it seems like they're committed
to making the right choices.
As a black artist, our work is healing
and is edifying for black children to see themselves
reflected in this toy form.
I think that's really important
and that keeps me waking up wanting to do this as well,
is that I have been granted the gift.
Gifts should not go to waste.