Six-channel video installation (color, sound), purple carpet, wall paint, seating
61 min (videos)
Overall dimensions variable
Commissioned by the Barbican, London and co-commissioned by Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden, TBA21–Academy, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection

Purple is an immersive multiscreen meditation by British filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, emblematizing the climatic fragility of the planet. Comprised of five distinct but interwoven movements, this epic work collages archival footage with newly shot materials set against a mesmerizing sound score. Syncopated as an orchestral call and response, its highs, middles, and lows evoke the meandering travels of mind and memory. Each of the movements focuses on distinct landscapes, from the volcanic grandeur of the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific to the desolate landscapes of Greenland and from the melting Alaskan hinterlands to the rising coastlines of Tahiti. The footage of the Marquesas was shot during a research trip that Akomfrah conducted with TBA21–Academy.

Philosopher Jane Bennett’s work serves as a guiding light for Akomfrah. Bennett’s concept of vibrant matter promotes new ways of thinking about the entangled and animated vibrancy of animals, beings, landscapes, and things. These form political collectives, assemblages, and concentrations where everything and everyone equally participates in vital becoming and are related to one another in the fragile ecology of things of contemporary life. Purple gives viewers a glimpse into the interconnectedness of being and investigates the disturbed relationships between human and nonhuman life. With its poetic intensity and sobering content, Purple makes visible the magnitude of human-made degradation already charred into the earth’s surface. Akomfrah tolls a bell in warning of what is to come if we do not move from awareness into action.

Born in Accra, Ghana, in 1957. Lives in London, UK.