John Akomfrah: Purple

In “Purple“, through six large-format screens, John Akomfrah explores the effects of climate change and its consequence for biodiversity on the planet’s different communities through both archival footage and newly shot film.

Purple, through visuals and sound that are in concert but not necessarily aligned, approximates not only the very idea of the global ecology of the Anthropocene— humanity’s newfound geological force, triggered by industrial capital and the subsequent ecological destruction—but also its felt temporality of lament. Indeed, Akomfrah’s work is not necessarily about the Anthropocene, but a meditation on it, while wondrously endowing it with astronomical, non-anthropomorphic agency.