Purple
John Akomfrah
Barbican Curve Gallery
6 OCTOBER 2017 - 7 JANUARY 2018
Free
John Akomfrah is a British artist and filmmaker. Previously known for work Vertigo Sea (2015): a depiction of our beautiful and vast oceans, as well as the cruelty of human injustice over ocean inhabitants. Thought of as a follow on from Vertigo Sea, Akomfrah brings it back bigger and better with new film Purple, which focuses more broadly on human effect on the environment as a whole.
Running for an hour, Purple, is displayed over 6 screens, each showing individual footage. Each screen coincides with a common theme - announced on a purple backdrop during the film. Composed of 6 parts, Purple displays how common human desires for food, defense, and travel have impacted the environment, whilst modern needs for energy and consumerism have taken us down a dark and deadly path. Images such as mass car production, energy plants churning out thick clouds and oil spillages are repeated, alongside images of cruelty, violence and death. A particular moment which stuck with me was Greenpeace attempting to board a boat, only to be struck down ferociously into the sea with a barrel of oil.
A repeated image of old photographs being drowned in a fast-flowing river, symbolises a sheer lack of nostalgia: the past becomes lost in our shiny, new, fast-flowing lives. Our human actions are anything but forward thinking, and we currently hold the attitude that if it is possible; we should do it, irrespective of future consequences. A second repeated image is a person standing alone, hooded, in a clinical white coat, surrounded by stunningly sublime landscape. This shows just how ugly and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things.
Shots taken in Greenland, Alaska, Volcanic Islands in the South Pacific, and various sites in the UK display our natural and untouched world in all its glory. Settings around the lush tropics of Tahiti and the white vastness of Greenland were simply mind blowing; reminding us again how small and insignificant we are compared to the world around us. The final section of Purple depicts death: death predominatly of the environment but also of animals and ourselves: human beings.
Whilst we have so many superhuman advances in modern medicine, and upcoming potentials to immortalise human life, it is easy to forget that we are a mere blip in the universe. Yes, we have progressed far further than any creature on earth and our intelligence seems to know no bounds, but we have used this intelligence to the selfish advantage of ourselves, and the sheer pain and destruction of everything else. Purple, for me, is a stark, honest and well needed reminder of the grandeur of the world around us.
In my second year at University I studied Aesthetics. Whilst I knew 'sublime' meant something of extreme beauty and unparalleled excellence, I was taught that it had a further, deeper meaning. If something is sublime it's great magnitude and strength should overwhelm, scare us even. For example, looking up at a mountain is a sublime experience, just as being in the middle of a violent storm or witnessing a stunning sunset is. Here, the subject may enjoy the experience of the sublime but they are also painfully reminded on their own insignificance and vulnerability.
Akomfrah, for me, manages to visualise this deeper meaning of the sublime and physically show not only how the world around us is vulnerable to our wrongdoings, but remind us how one day, it might just fight back.
OVERALL RATING: ****
https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2017/event/john-akomfrah-purple
