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This year’s British national pavilion at the Venice Biennale opened with a video from the Tudor court commemorating the murder of David Oluwale, a British-Nigerian man who drowned in a Yorkshire river after being beaten by local police in 1969.
Along the way, a sumptuously rendered visual and audio story emerges from the exhibition of Ghanaian filmmaker Sir John Akomfrah.
“It’s a project on memory and water functions for me as a very resonant image of memory. How it works, where it goes, and the form that it takes in our lives.” says John Akomfrah.
The Ghanaian founder of Black Audio Film Collective said he would have laughed if someone had said he’d someday be in the pavilion
📌 John Akomfrah's British pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale 2024
Exploring post-colonialism, environmental devastation and the politics of aesthetics, 'Listening All Night To The Rain' is Akomfrah's boldest and most ambitious commission to date.
video: @ChristiesInc pic.twitter.com/ddV6gVeboY
— BrainyFriend 🕹️ $RCADE (@AstaDelfina) April 17, 2024
John Akomfrah, artist, British pavilion: “I mean, this feels like a very significant moment for artists of color. Because I’m in the British pavilion. Next to me is a French one that’s with an artist, Julien, who I love a lot, of African origin. And then next to me is a Canadian pavilion that has a biracial artist, again of African heritage. So that’s certainly not happened before, that three major pavilions have artists of color, inhabiting, occupied, making work in them. And that feels like a breakthrough.”
The city’s public gardens will host 88 country pavilions for this year’s Venice Biennale, the world’s largest and most important art exhibition. Benin, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Senegal, Timor-Leste, and Panama are participating for the first time.
The British Council commissioned Akomfrah’s piece for the Venice Biennale, and sections of it will be presented in the UK in 2025 at the National Museum of Wales and Dundee Contemporary Arts.
We're thrilled to have supported @BritishArts in bringing John Akomfrah's incredible work from the Venice Biennale to museums and galleries across the UK!@AmgueddfaCymru and @DCAdundee are the first to be announced in the 2025 tour. Further locations & tour dates will be… https://t.co/FV9oChE3hu
— Art Fund (@artfund) April 17, 2024
