Artist John Akomfrah on migration

In 2018, London-based British artist, film director, and writer John Akomfrah visited Artforum offices on the heels of three US solo shows-at the New Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina. Talking with Lauren O’Neill-Butler, the artist declared: “Advancing industrial worlds seem to have a big problem with the three languages of migration, and this is something we really need to get right. Generally, one language is acknowledged in secret, and the other is disavowed. The first is the necessity of migration. It is absolutely critical.”
At the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, where he represents Great Britain, the artist continues with his signature large-scale video works probing the connections between migration past and present, colonialism, and modern empire.
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