Rose Video 11: John Akomfrah

The eleventh iteration of the museum’s Rose Video series will feature John Akomfrah’s Auto Da Fé (2016), a two-channel video that investigates historic migrations driven by religious persecution. The title of Akomfrah’s video means “Acts of Faith.” In powerfully lyric imagery, the work depicts scenes from eight migrations over the past four centuries, from the flight of Sephardic Jews from Catholic Brazil to Barbados in 1654 to present-day jihadist-driven migrations from Mosul, Iraq and Hombori, Mali. The British-based Akomfrah (b. 1957, Accra, Ghana) is the winner of the 2017 Artes Mundi, the UK’s biggest prize for international contemporary art, and his presentation at the Rose represents the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in New England.

Organized by Caitlin Julia Rubin, Assistant Curator.