John Akomfrah was chosen to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2024.
18 Facts About John Akomfrah
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John Akomfrah was born in Accra, Dominion of Ghana, to parents who were involved with anti-colonial activism.
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John Akomfrah was educated in British schools since around the age of eight.
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John Akomfrah was an influential creator in 1982, founding the Black Audio Film Collective, which was discontinued in 1998.
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In 1998, together with Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, his long-term producing partners, John Akomfrah founded Smoking Dogs Films.
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John Akomfrah has taught multiple courses at academic institutions, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, New York University, Westminster University, and Princeton University.
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John Akomfrah's works are included in permanent collections of museums worldwide, including the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Perez Art Museum Miami, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, among others.
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On 24 January 2023, it was announced that John Akomfrah would represent the UK at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.
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John Akomfrah's 2015 work, Vertigo Sea, is a three-screen film installation that was shown at the 56th Venice Biennale in May 2015.
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Vertigo Sea premiered in the UK at the Arnolfini in Bristol coinciding with an exhibition of new and recent work by John Akomfrah being shown at Lisson Gallery.
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Vertigo Sea premiered in the UK at the Arnolfini in Bristol coinciding with an exhibition of new and recent work by John Akomfrah being shown in Cardiff.
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Purple, a 62-minute, six-screen video installation commissioned for the prominent Curve Gallery space at the Barbican, London, John Akomfrah describes as "a response to [the] Anthropocene".
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In 2023, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, John Akomfrah debuted a new five-channel work titled Arcadia.
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John Akomfrah was appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 New Year Honours for services to the film industry.
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In 2017, John Akomfrah won the biennial Artes Mundi Prize, the UK's biggest award for international art, having been chosen for the award for his "substantial body of outstanding work dealing with issues of migration, racism and religious persecution", including his work Auto Da Fe.
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John Akomfrah was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to art and film making.
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John Akomfrah was named Artist of the Year in the 2018 Apollo Magazine Awards.
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John Akomfrah was knighted in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to the arts.