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Willard Wigan has immortalized the Obama family in the eye of a needle and Muhammad Ali on the head of a match. In producing sculptures so incredibly small, he works under a microscope and employs ingenious tools, such as a fly's hair or an ex-girlfriend's eyelash for paintbrushes.

This passion for the diminutive stems from feelings of insignificance in Wigan's childhood. He was severely dyslexic but undiagnosed, and his teachers' harsh words drove him to hide in a nearby shed where he made shoes and hats for his friends, the ants. Today, his art has earned him national honors and critical acclaim, proving that some treasures can't be seen with the naked eye.

"It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn't hold me back and my teachers couldn't criticize me. That's how my career as a micro-sculptor began."

Willard Wigan

William Kamkwamba, from Malawi, is a born inventor. When he was 14, he built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap, working from rough plans he found in a library book called Using Energy and modifying them to fit his needs. The windmill he built powers four lights and two radios in his family home.
After reading about Kamkwamba on Mike McKay's blog Hactivate (which picked up the story from a local Malawi newspaper), TEDGlobal Conference Director Emeka Okafor spent several weeks tracking him down at his home in Masitala Village, Wimbe, and invited him to attend TEDGlobal on a fellowship. Onstage, Kamkwamba talked about his invention and shared his dreams: to build a larger windmill to help with irrigation for his entire village, and to go back to school.
Following Kamkwamba's moving talk, there was an outpouring of support for him and his promising work. Members of the TED community got together to help him improve his power system (by incorporating solar energy), and further his education through school and mentorships. Subsequent projects have included clean water, malaria prevention, solar power and lighting for the six homes in his family compound; a deep-water well with a solar-powered pump for clean water; and a drip irrigation system. Kamkwamba himself returned to school, and is now attending the African Leadership Academy, a new pan-African prep school outside Johannesburg, South Africa.
Kamkwamba's story is documented in his autobiography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope. A short documentary about Kamkwamba, called Moving Windmills, won several awards last year; Kamkwamba and friends are now working on a full-length film. You can read the ongoing details on his blog (which he keeps with help from his mentor), and support his work and other young inventors at MovingWindmills.org.

Qatar's new cultural jewel plus the ancient art of kite-making in Japan.

On the skyline of Doha, the capital city of the Gulf state of Qatar a new landmark has emerged.

The Museum of Islamic Art is the jewel in the crown of Qatars bid to become a cultural force in the region.

Built on a man made island the Museum of Islamic Art is a place set apart for research, learning and creativity.

Like much of Doha, the architecture is new and modern but also pays tribute to its Islamic heritage.

But it is what is on the inside that has international art historians buzzing with excitement.

Kite-making in Japan

The annual Hamamatsu festival in Japan celebrates the birth of a district family's firstborn with the launching of a special kite.

Proud parents commission kites costing up to $2,000 each.

Artsworld met one family who have maintined the ancient trade of making traditional kites.

Canadian DNA art plus pinhole cameras in Colombia.

Scientists studying DNA in the Canadian city of Montreal have recently been dealing with requests from a most unusual client.

Two friends based in the country's capital Ottawa - one a trained scientist, the other a marketing specialist - came up with a fun idea that would surprisingly transform both of their lives.

Descibed as "Andy Warhol meets CSI" the two men send requests off to the DNA lab and then your unique configuration is turned into a work of art.

An idea that was initially met with scepticism and a trickle of requests has now become a viable business and a flood of customers.

Shooting for peace

Pinhole cameras which do not need a lens but just a small opening in a box or tin that manipulates light are a popular science project in many Colombian schools because they are cheap and easy to make.

Now a new initiative Shooting Cameras for Peace is using pinhole cameras to capture the stories of some of the thousands of young people in the Colombian capital Bogota who are forced to live in extreme poverty.

Many had to flee the armed conflict in the countryside, their education and their childhood interrupted.

Since the photography project started hundreds of kids have shared their images with their communities and with the world.

This week Artsworld visits Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp. This pioneering project is the only professional venue for theatre and the arts in the north of the Palestinian occupied territories. Zakaria Zubeidi, the head of the al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade in Jenin in the West Bank, has now put down his weapons and believes that children's theatre is an important way to fight for Palestinian statehood.

The programme also features the China Disabled People's Performing Arts Troupe, which has entertained audiences in more than 50 countries. The troupe consists of 100 performers who say their tightly knit community has given them a renewed sense of pride and purpose despite a history of discrimination that continues to haunt many of China's 80 million people with disabilities.

In part two, of this week's show we go to the Brazilian city of Salvador Bahia, where the circus has become much more than entertainment. The big top of the Circus Picolino is as close as many young people will get to a classroom but the lessons learned here are transforming lives.

And we report on a new sound making waves throughout Tanzania. In Dar Esalam, the country's biggest city, Bongo Flava is the beat from the street and the rhythm of the times.

Origami, as Robert Lang describes it, is simple: "You take a creature, you combine it with a square, and you get an origami figure." But Lang's own description belies the technicality of his art; indeed, his creations inspire awe by sheer force of their intricacy. His repertoire includes a snake with one thousand scales, a two-foot-tall allosaurus skeleton, and a perfect replica of a Black Forest cuckoo clock. Each work is the result of software (which Lang himself pioneered) that manipulates thousands of mathematical calculations in the production of a "folding map" of a single creature.
The marriage of mathematics and origami harkens back to Lang's own childhood. As a first-grader, Lang proved far too clever for elementary mathematics and quickly became bored, prompting his teacher to give him a book on origami. His acuity for mathematics would lead him to become a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, and the owner of nearly fifty patents on lasers and optoelectronics. Now a professional origami master, Lang practices his craft as both artist and engineer, one day folding the smallest of insects and the next the largest of space-bound telescope lenses.

"Lang creates creatures of such complexity that it seems impossible that each is composed of a single sheet of paper, no cuts, no glue."

Apple.com

Already known throughout the architecture community for his award-winning tenure as editor-in-chief of Architecture magazine, Reed Kroloff came to the attention of the country at large after Hurricane Katrina. As Dean of Architecture at Tulane University, he was responsible for bringing back 97% of the school's student body and 100% of its faculty after the disaster. In 2005, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin appointed Kroloff to the Bring New Orleans Back Commission to assist in the reconstruction of the city, and to help avoid creating, in Kroloff's words, "a bad cartoon version of what New Orleans actually is."
His searing 2006 essay "Black Like Me" lays out the frustrations of a citizen of post-Katrina New Orleans -- "the slow-burning frustration of being at the table but not invited to sit down." It's typical of his desire to look past simple aesthetics to the emotional heart of any building project.
Kroloff left New Orleans in 2007 to become the director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He continues to promote excellence in urban design through his writing and his consulting firm Jones | Kroloff. He is also an active organizer and adviser for dozens of New Public Works competitions designed to choose architects for high-profile projects, including the Motown Center in Detroit, and a signature building for the University of Connecticut campus (the contract for which was awarded to Frank Gehry).

"Mr. Kroloff can afford to be cheeky."

Fred Bernstein, New York Times

Because he's self-effacing, frankly open and thought-provoking, all at the same time. Vik Muniz's explorations into the power of representation and his masterful use of unexpected materials such as chocolate syrup, toy soldiers and paper confetti mean that his resulting images transcend mere gimmickry.

Muniz is often hailed as a master illusionist, but he says he's not interested in fooling people. Rather, he wants his images to show people a measure of their own belief. Muniz has exhibited his playfully provocative work in galleries all over the world. Describing the history of photography as "the history of blindness," his images simply but powerfully remind a viewer of what it means to see, and how our preconceptions can color every experience.

"Think of brilliant trickster Vik Muniz as the offspring of Man Ray and Jacques Henri Lartigue, combining the former's relentless experimentation, the latter's effortless wit, and their mutual inventiveness in work that defies category."

Vince Aletti, the Village Voice