Talking to our Time: John Akomfrah

John Akomfrah RA is having a moment. Earlier this year he was knighted in recognition of his contribution to the arts, and soon after it was announced that he will represent Great Britain at the 2024 Venice Biennale. This year, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn and National Museum of African Art will host major exhibitions of his work. Akomfrah is a widely respected artist and filmmaker, whose works investigate memory, post-colonialism, temporality, and aesthetics and often explore the experiences of migrant diasporas globally. He was a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, which started in London in 1982 alongside artists David Lawson and Lina Gopaul, with whom he still collaborates today.

Akomfrah joined Hirshhorn associate curator Marina Isgro and African Art senior curator Karen Milbourne in conversation to discuss the role of art in addressing social and political crises—from the climate crisis, as addressed in Purple, to the worldwide reckoning with racism and the COVID pandemic, as explored in Five Murmurations, as well as what it means to have exhibitions in these two institutions.

The program is hosted on the occasion of the exhibition of Akomfrah’s monumental video work Purple at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the forthcoming opening of Five Murmurations at the National Museum of African Art this fall.