JOHN AKOMFRAH. A SPACE OF EMPATHY

John Akom­frah (b. 1957) creates thoughtful video works of haunting audio­vi­sual inten­sity. He tells of radical changes and crises of the present and past on char­ac­ter­istic large-format screens. The SCHIRN is presenting for the first time a compre­hen­sive overview of the artist’s impres­sive work, which to date is still rela­tively unknown in Germany, through a selec­tion of his impor­tant video instal­la­tions from recent years. The cofounder of the influ­en­tial London-based Black Audio Film Collec­tive (est. 1982) inter­weaves his own film sequences with archive mate­rial to create multi­lay­ered, at times asso­cia­tive collages, frequently in the form of simul­ta­neous narra­tive struc­tures. Akom­frah’s oeuvre crit­i­cally exam­ines colo­nial pasts, global migra­tion, and the climate crisis. The starting point of the SCHIRN’s exten­sive presen­ta­tion is a new immer­sive multi­screen instal­la­tion, which traces a thematic arc exploring the first settler contacts on the shores of North America’s eastern coasts, the conquis­ta­dors in Central and South America, and the arrival of Euro­peans in the Caribbean, South­east Asia, and China.