Awesome Black Creativity Exhibition

“Awesome Black Creativity,” a celebration of Black figures in Lego Bricks, is on display at DuPage Children’s Museum through March in the Good Show!

This interactive exhibition of 26 Lego brick-built figures, an A–Z series, will inspire museum guests to think about building in new, innovative ways while providing the opportunity to make and display their own creations alongside Lego Masters.

“It’s 26 Lego figurines depicting amazing Black creativity. So there’s artists of all kinds and athletes, all these representations of how these people impacted our world,” said Dustin Thacker, Arts & Maker Specialist at the DuPage Children’s Museum.

The exhibition, “Awesome Black Creativity”, features popular figures from A-to-Z like Usain Bolt, Oprah Winfrey, and Halle Berry, alongside other notable creatives.

“So some of the characters are pretty well known and some of them you don’t know. So there’s this great mix of, ‘oh, I recognize them’ and then you get sucked into the display and start to find out all kinds of information and learn about new people that you may have never discovered before,” said Thacker.

Who created the display?

The display was created in 26 weeks by Dave Kaleta who designed and built the figures, and Richard Dryden who researched and wrote the bios. The two will be on site for a special visit next month.

“We’re so excited to welcome the artists on March 2, where they will be having workshops, where they’ll help guests create their own self-portraits and talk about their work,” said Thacker. “With self-portraits, we’re thinking about who we are, what we want to become, and doing that kind of inner work that makes art such an amazing mode of expression.

The display will stay through March for guests to learn some history of Black creativity and explore their own.

“One of our missions is to create these future inventors and the future artists of the world. And I think when you walk into “Awesome Black Creativity”, you see 26 stories of people who found their voice and felt empowered and brought their best selves to the world,” said Thacker. “I hope that every family who walks in here is inspired by these stories and has those important conversations with their children.”