Black history is about much more than just slavery and the underground railroad.

“Slavery is not Black history. It’s an interruption,” Jerisha Grant-Hall said.

Grant-Hall is Chairperson of the Newmarket African Caribbean Canadian Association (NACCA).

Her association has partnered with the Town of Newmarket to organize a Black History Month exhibit that aims to go back to pre-colonial times and highlight achievements of Black people pre- slavery.

One of the goals of this event is “filling in the knowledge gap,” Grant-Hall said.

The three artists in the coming exhibit don’t just look at one period of time, Grant-Hall said. “They look at the continuum of the Black experience,” she said. They look not just at the past but at the present and future.

The artists address themes of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial history, identity, culture, intersectionality and activism from the perspectives of contemporary African Canadians. The works incorporate elements of symbolism and ancestry through photography, sculpture and dance.

The three artists in this exhibit are: Ekow Nimako, Adeyemi Adegbesan and Coco Collective. Ekow Nimako has been making art with Lego his entire life. This Toronto-based artist builds sculptures out of black Lego. He began when he was four and his art later took root in the sculpture studios of York University, evolving over the years into a unique contemporary art practice. Along with his uniquely fluid building style, keen attention to form, and content deeply rooted in other-worldly Black narratives, Nimako’s artwork transcends the iconic Lego bricks to reach new heights of materiality and substance.

Nimako’s work is rooted in pre-colonialism but it’s futuristic, Grant-Hall said.

“It builds a legacy of blackness,” she said. The Lego is “pretty phenomenal.”