During a period of political and social unrest in 1980s England, Akomfrah co-founded the Black Audio Film Collective, a group that developed a groundbreaking experimental style to center Black identity and culture within the British experience. Their celebrated works, such as Expeditions One: Signs of Empire (1983) and Handsworth Songs (1986), are deeply critical portrayals of modern Britain that use archival, newsreel, and original imagery to contextualize civil unrest as the result of a long history of discrimination and suppression of Black citizens by British society. By 1998, Black Audio Film Collective disbanded, but Akomfrah continued making art with two founding members, Lina Gopaul and David Lawson. Since then, Akomfrah has developed his signature multilayered filmic style, creating enormous, multichannel video installations with soundtracks of haunting musical compositions and readings from historical texts. His epic films draw connections across time, history, and themes, poetically weaving together topics such as the cruelty of the whaling industry and the Atlantic slave trade (Vertigo Sea, 2015); the effects of climate change on humans and our ecological landscapes (Purple, 2017); and the wave of recent refugees from Africa, declining elephant populations, and Ghana’s layered political history (Four Nocturnes, 2019).

Akomfrah studied sociology at Portsmouth Polytechnic in Portsmouth, England. His numerous awards include the Artes Mundi Prize (2017); honorary doctorates from Portsmouth University (2014), University of the Arts, London (2013), and Goldsmiths, London (2013); Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (2008); and the Taipei Golden Lion, Taipei Film Festival, Taiwan (1999). He has had solo exhibitions at Seattle Art Museum, Washington (2020); Secession, Vienna, Austria (2020); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts (2019); Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal (2018); New Museum, New York (2018); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California (2018); National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2017); Turner Contemporary, Margate, England (2016); Tate Britain, London, England (2013); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England (2012); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011), and others. His work has also been included the Venice Biennale, Italy (2015, 2019); Prospect, New Orleans, Louisiana (2017); Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates (2013); Sundance Film Festival, Utah (2011, 2013); Liverpool Biennial, England (2012): Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2012); Documenta, Kassel, Germany (2002); Cannes International Film Festival, France (1989); among others. Akomfrah lives and works in London.