John Akomfrah

John Akomfrah, born in 1957, is an artist and filmmaker, whose works are characterised by their investigation into memory, post-colonialism, temporality and aesthetics and often explore the experiences of migrant diasporas globally.

Akomfrah was a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, which started in London in 1982 alongside the artists David Lawson and Lina Gopaul, with whom he still collaborates today.  Their first film, Handsworth Songs (1986) explores the events surrounding the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London through a combination of archive footage, still photos and newsreel. The film won several international prizes and established a multi-layered visual style that has become a recognisable motif of Akomfrah’s practice. 

In 2017 Akomfrah was awarded the Artes Mundi Prize and in 2019, on the occasion of his participation at the first Ghana Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, the artist presented Four Nocturnes (2019), a three-channel piece that reflects on the intertwined relationship between humanity’s destruction of the natural world and our destruction of ourselves. 

John Akomfrah, who is represented by Lisson, has exhibited at leading museums and galleries worldwide and in 2024 will represent Great Britain at the 60th Venice Biennale.