John Akomfrah: Four Nocturnes

Wrightwood 659 hosts two installations by distinguished artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah whose work investigates memory, post-colonialism, temporality, and the experiences of migrant diasporas globally.Four Nocturnes is a three-screen video installation which explores the complex relationship between humanity’s destruction of the natural world and its self-destruction. Using Africa’s declining elephant populations as its narrative spine, Four Nocturnes is a meditation on mortality, loss, fragmented identity, mythology, and memory through poetic visuals that survey the landscape of African cultural heritage. Four Nocturnes was commissioned for the inaugural Ghana Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. Also on view at Wrightwood 659 will be Toxic Cloud, an installation comprising hundreds of plastic jugs suspended overhead, capturing the sense of our polluted atmosphere.

Akomfrah (b. 1957) lives and works in London and is a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective (1982–1998) and its offshoot, the film and television production company Smoking Dogs Films (1998–present). His work has been shown in museums and exhibitions around the world including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the New Museum, New York; the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Serpentine Gallery, London; Tate Britain, London; Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden; and the 56th Venice Biennale, among others. He has also been featured in many international film festivals, including Sundance Film Festival, Utah, US (2013 and 2011) and Toronto International Film Festival, Canada (2012). He was awarded the Artes Mundi Prize in 2017 and a Knighthood for services to the Arts in 2023. In 2024 Akomfrah presented a new body of work entitled Listening All Night to the Rain in the British Pavilion in Venice, commissioned by the British Council for the 60th Venice Biennale.