JOHN AKOMFRAH

• ‘Choosing The Margin As A Space Of Radical Openness’ (1989), Bell Hooks (1952-2021)

British artist John Akomfrah opens the U.S. premiere of Listening All Night To The Rain, the critically acclaimed work first commissioned for the British Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia in 2024. Akomfrah brings a focused iteration to New York, debuting the central multi-channel film, Canto VI, which traces pivotal moments in the histories of colonised nations, focusing on the independence movements and uprisings that swept Africa and Asia from the 1940s to the 1970s, as well as the parallel history of women’s struggle for liberation. The presentation at Lisson Gallery coincides with Akomfrah’s continued engagement with histories of resistance in the United States; alongside this exhibition, The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Menil Collection have co-commissioned John Akomfrah: The Hour Of The Dog, an immersive multi-channel film installation exploring non-violent civil rights protests of the 1960s, including the work of young activists from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The project premiered at the BMA in November 2025 and travels to the Menil Collection from April 2026.

Described as “utterly captivating” by The Guardian, Listening All Night to the Rain continues Akomfrah’s abiding interest in memory, post-colonialism, ecology and the politics of aesthetics with a renewed focus on the sonic. Drawing its title from Chinese writer and artist Su Dongpo’s (1037 – 1101) poetry that meditates upon the transitory nature of life during a period of political exile, the exhibition is seen as a manifesto that encourages the act of listening as a form of activism. The exhibition weaves together newly filmed material with found still images, video footage, audio clips and texts from international archive collections and libraries. Akomfrah juxtaposes these documented geopolitical narratives with imagined tableaux – often surreal or dreamlike in nature – in order to reposition the role of art in its ability to write history in unexpected ways, forming critical and poetic connections between different geographies and time periods. Through methods of bricolage (the reuse of diverse materials in order to produce new meanings), non-linearity and repetition, the artist tells stories from the five continents through the ‘memories’ of multiple filmed characters who represent the migrant community in Britain.

Originally conceived for the British Pavilion, the exhibition transformed the space into a vessel for a series of sculptural film installations titled ‘cantos’ or ‘movements’, each addressing different aspects of twentieth- and twenty-first-century global histories. At Lisson Gallery New York, Akomfrah presents Canto VI, the central multi-channel film of Listening All Night to the Rain which specifically examines pivotal moments in the histories of colonized nations, focusing on the independence movements that swept Africa and Asia from the 1940s to the 1970s. Drawing on archival footage, the work reflects on the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, the Congo’s struggle for independence from Belgian rule, Nigeria’s path to nationhood and the catastrophic aftermath of colonial amalgamation, and the 1947 Partition of India, seen through figures such as Jawaharlal Nehru. These narratives are framed through the diasporic experience in Britain, where personal memory is entwined with the enduring legacies of empire.

Analogous to these narratives of anti-colonial struggle, Canto VI foregrounds another, interconnected history of liberation: the women’s rights movement. Akomfrah highlights pivotal yet often forgotten figures whose identities were shaped by migration and dispersed communities, acknowledging their profound influence on the cultural and political development of gender equality movements. By placing these stories in dialogue, the work underscores the entanglement of struggles for national independence, civil rights, and social justice.

”John Akomfrah: Listening All Night to the Rain” was commissioned by the British Council for the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2024. Co-commissioners: Lisson Gallery, TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Smoking Dogs Films.

Courtesy Lisson Gallery.