Renowned Ghanaian-British artist, filmmaker, and writer John Akomfrah collaborated with Dread Scott on Slave Rebellion Reenactment, to create the film documentation of the performance. Akomfrah’s moving image work has contributed seminal perspectives on the black diaspora, both in the UK and around the world. Akomfrah’s work gained awareness in the early 1980s as part of Black Audio Film Collective, a group of several artists founded in 1982 in response to the 1981 Brixton riots. The collective produced a number of experimental films, combining archival and found footage, interviews and in depth depictions of contemporary England. Akomfrah and Black Audio’s works were remarkable for their poignant political inquiries and collage-like approach. They allowed for narratives of black British history and culture to become accessible by producing documentaries made for British Television. Throughout the 1990s Akomfrah explored contemporary British society through a wider historical lens and focused on the legacy of global colonialism. Akomfrah’s work now takes many forms in multichannel video work and large-scale installations.

Watch a short interview with John about his piece Purple here.