Vertigo Sea. John Akomfrah

This publication is based on the video installations by John Akomfran (Accra, Ghana, 1951) Vertigo Sea (2015) and Peripeteia (2012) presented at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona.

Both have in common the motif of water that Akomfrah often uses to highlight issues arising from human movements, from colonial conquests and the transatlantic slave trade to contemporary migratory flows. In both works, nature is presented as a setting for events, actions and moods. And both also use representations of actual figures from history to show the harshness of particular historical episodes.