Julianknxx (left), photo by Marc Hibbert; John Akomfrah (right).
Book tickets
Join us for a special evening with leading artists John Akomfrah and Julianknxx. Working across film, sound and archive, both artists use moving image to tell powerful human stories that question the structures and systems we exist within.
Coming together in conversation for the first time, we explore their investigations into memory, the archive, and oral history, as well as how they have developed their unique visual languages. The evening will feature short screenings, followed by a live discussion chaired by Dominique Heyse-Moore , Senior Curator of Contemporary British Art at Tate Britain.
This event is part of ICA Speaking Futures × Diasporas Now, a yearlong cross-cultural programme of exchange and knowledge production, gathering artists together, sharing urgent discussions and inviting audiences to shape the journey.
Coming together in conversation for the first time, we explore their investigations into memory, the archive, and oral history, as well as how they have developed their unique visual languages. The evening will feature short screenings, followed by a live discussion chaired by Dominique Heyse-Moore , Senior Curator of Contemporary British Art at Tate Britain.
This event is part of ICA Speaking Futures × Diasporas Now, a yearlong cross-cultural programme of exchange and knowledge production, gathering artists together, sharing urgent discussions and inviting audiences to shape the journey.
Bios
John Akomfrah is a widely respected artist and filmmaker, whose works are characterised by their investigations into memory, post-colonialism, temporality and aesthetics, and often explore the experiences of migrant diasporas globally. Akomfrah was a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, which started in London in 1982 alongside artist Lina Gopaul, later joined by David Lawson who he still collaborates with today alongside Ashitey Akomfrah as Smoking Dogs Films. Their debut film, Handsworth Songs (1986), examined the 1985 Birmingham and London riots through a layered mix of archive, stills and new footage, earning international acclaim and defining Akomfrah’s distinctive visual style. Subsequent works include The Unfinished Conversation (2012), a three-screen portrait of Stuart Hall; Peripeteia (2012), inspired by 16th-century Dürer portraits; and Mnemosyne (2010), which explores migrant experience in the UK. Major later projects include the three-screen Vertigo Sea (2015), linking maritime history, migration and exploitation; Purple and Precarity (both 2017), addressing climate change and the life of jazz musician Buddy Bolden respectively; and Mimesis: African Soldier (2018), commemorating African participants in World War I. Highlights since include Four Nocturnes (2019) at the Venice Biennale, the five-channel films Arcadia and Becoming Wind (both 2023), and Listening All Night to the Rain (2024), presented in the British Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale.
Akomfrah (born 1957) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions have taken place at Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, US (2025); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid, Spain (2025); National Museum Cardiff, Wales (2025); Glasgow Museum of Art, Scotland (2024); British Pavilion, 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2024); The Box, Plymouth, UK (2023); Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany (2023); Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (2023) and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., USA (2022); Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada (2022); Towner Eastbourne, UK (2021); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain (2021); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain (2020); Seattle Art Museum, WA, USA (2020); Secession, Vienna, Austria (2020); BALTIC, Gateshead, UK (2019); ICA Boston, MA, USA (2019); Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal (2018); New Museum, New York, NY, USA (2018); Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden (2015, 2018); SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, USA (2018); Barbican, London, UK (2017).
Recent international group exhibitions include ‘Entangled pasts, 1768-now’, Royal Academy, London, UK (2024); ‘Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present’, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2023); ‘Global Ghana’, The Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE and Accra, Ghana (2022); ‘Fault Lines’, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA (2022); ‘Posteriority’, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, South Korea (2021);
‘Family – Visions of a shared humanity’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2021); ‘Am I Human To You?’, Art Museum KUBE, Alesund, Norway (2021); ‘Affect Machine: Self-healing in the Post-Capitalist Era’, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan (2021); ‘Terminal’, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2020); Ghana Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); ‘Strange Days: Memories of the Future’, New Museum x The Store, London, UK (2018); ‘Histórias Afro-Atlânticas’, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil (2018); ‘From where I stand, my eye will send a light to you in the North’, Te Tuhi Museum, Auckland, New Zealand (2018); Prospect 4, New Orleans, LA, USA (2017); ‘Restless Earth’, La Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2017); ‘Unfinished Conversations’, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY, USA (2017); ‘British Art Show 8’ (2015-17); ‘All the World’s Futures’, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2015); ‘Africa Now: Politcal Patterns’, SeMA, Seoul, South Korea (2014); Sharjah Biennial 11, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2013); Liverpool Biennial, UK (2012) and Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2012).Akomfrah was awarded the Artes Mundi Prize in 2017 and a Knighthood for services to the Arts in the 2023 New Year Honours.
Julianknxx is a poet, artist and filmmaker.
The polyphonic nature of Julianknxx’s work is indicative of his expansive practice, which is rooted in poetry but extends into performance, film, music and sculpture. Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Julianknxx draws on his personal experiences to broaden perspectives on the history and culture of Africa and its diasporas. Inspired by oral history traditions and working with a distinctive aesthetic approach, his films invite us to consider how we construct both local and global narratives, while reflecting on how it feels to exist in liminal spaces.
His work has been shown at galleries and museums worldwide, with his acclaimed first institutional solo show ‘Chorus In Rememory of Flight’ at the Barbican, London (2023), called ‘transcendent and poignant’ by the Evening Standard. Since then, the installation has travelled across Europe with presentations at Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (CAM), Lisbon (2025), The Model, Ireland (2025), De Singel, Antwerp (2024). Further solo shows include a new installation ‘Shifting / Spirit / Time’ at BURO Stedelijk, Amsterdam (2025).
Recent group shows include; The Bienal de São Paulo (2025), A World in Common at Tate Modern, London (2023), C/O Berlin (2025), Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam (2024), the Sharjah Biennial 16, Sharjah (2025); Resonance: Black Visual Art & Sonic Chronicles at M.Bassy, Hamburg (2025); Keeping Time at Gallery 1957, Ghana (2024); Rites of Passage at Gagosian, London (2023); and To Be Held at Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate (2023). Previous participations include Whitechapel Gallery Open, London (2022); Nocturnal Creatures at Whitechapel Gallery (2021); Lux at 180 The Strand, London (2021); The View from There at Sadie Coles HQ, London (2021); and more.
Performances include Attuned in the Bantutronic with Tina Campt at 180 Studios (2024); Chorus in Flight at The Philadelphia Museum of Art (2024), BURO Stedelijk (2024), and St James’s Church (2023); Art Basel Conversations: Sonic Performance, Basel (2023); and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon (2023).
Book tickets
Wed, 25 Feb 2026
Cinema 1
06:45 pm
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
Access information
Cinema 1
- Both our Cinemas have step free access from The Mall and are accessible by ramp
- We have 1 wheelchair allocated space with a seat for a companion
- All seats are hard back, have a crushed velvet feel and they do not recline
- These are our seat size dimensions: W 42 x D 45 x H 52
- Arm rest either side of the seat dimensions: L 27 x W 7 x H 20
for the following requirements:
- We have unassigned seating. If you require a specific seat, please reserve this in advance
- Free for visitors where ticket prices are a barrier, please email
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Julianknxx, Still from Shifting / Spirit / Time, BURO Stedelijk, 2025 © Studioknxx.
John Akomfrah, Precarity (still), 2017 @ John Akomfrah.
no. 236848.