Opening Friday 6 November 2026
Arcadia by Sir John Akomfrah
A film narrating a global migration of people, nature and disease
Witness the impact of the Colombian Exchange in this multi-screen installation by Sir John Akomfrah.
From the 1400s onwards, the world saw the massive movement of plants, people, animals, precious metals, commodities, technology, diseases and ideas between the Americas, Afro-Eurasia and Europe.
Accompanied by a striking soundtrack, Arcadia explores the lasting environmental and social impacts of this exchange.
Across five screens, breathtaking imagery of deserts, ice fields, mountains and restless seas are interrupted by decaying ships, disease, cargo and symbols of cross-continental trade.
Through Arcadia, Sir John asks how migration, colonialism and empire have shaped the planet, its people and its natural environments. You're invited to reflect on the entanglement of human histories with the natural world and the legacies of those transformations today.
Programming in our Jerwood Gallery is supported by Jerwood Foundation.
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About the artist
Sir John Akomfrah
John Akomfrah is a widely respected artist and filmmaker, whose works are characterised by their investigations into memory, post-colonialism, temporality and aesthetics and often explore the experiences of migrant diasporas globally.
Akomfrah was a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, which started in London in 1982 alongside artist Lina Gopaul, later joined by David Lawson who he still collaborates with today alongside Ashitey Akomfrah as Smoking Dogs Films. Their debut film, Handsworth Songs (1986), examined the Birmingham and London riots through a layered mix of archive, stills and new footage, earning international acclaim and defining Akomfrah’s distinctive visual style.
Subsequent works include The Unfinished Conversation (2012), Peripeteia (2012), Vertigo Sea (2015), Purple (2017), and Mimesis: African Soldier (2018). In 2019, Akomfrah presented Four Nocturnes in the Ghana Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, followed in 2024 by Listening All Night to the Rain for the British Pavilion, commissioned by the British Council.
Recent solo exhibitions include at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid, Spain, and the National Museum Cardiff, Wales. Akomfrah was awarded the Artes Mundi Prize in 2017 and a Knighthood for services to the Arts in the 2023 New Year Honours.
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