The video installation, Vertigo Sea, was included in the Venice Biennale group exhibition curated by Okwui Enwezor. Now, audiences in Perth are privileged to experience this, and the Australian premiere of Akomfrah’s, Auto Da Fé, (2009), a fictional narrative of migration spanning four centuries. Recently Auto Da Fé won the Artes Mundi prize for addressing social issues and the human condition. Akomfrah’s work targets racism, religious persecution and underscores that people migrate to survive. In accepting his award the Ghanaian-British artist derided the debates that still surround these issues as the ‘bleak culture of fear and intolerance’ in the UK.
John Akomfrah, Auto Da Fé #01, 2016, two channel HD colour video installation, 5.1 sound, 40 minutes 30 seconds © Smoking Dogs Films. Courtesy the artist, Lisson Gallery, London and John Curtin Gallery, Western Australia
John Curtin Gallery
Until 30 April, 2017
Western Australia
