John Akomfrah - Vertigo Sea

As we are going to Bristol next week to see the exhibition 'Vertigo Sea' by John Akomfrah I thought that it would be a good idea to research into him a little bit to understand what the exhibition was about.

Vertigo Sea is a three screen film all about a man's relationship with the sea and exploration of its role in the history of slavery, migration and conflict. The film is based from two books: Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Heathcote Williams' Whale Nation.

From just reading a little bit into what Vertigo Sea is about I get the impression that it could be a film that really tries to bring across a message for people to understand the relationship between man and animal.

I then decided to research into John Akomfrah himself to see what sort of person he is and what influences him.

Akomfrah was born in Accra, Ghana. His parents were involved in anti-colonial activism. Him and his mum had to leave Ghana because his mother's life was in danger after the coup in 1966 and his father died in the struggle that led up to the coup. Since moving to Britain at the age of four he has been aducated in schools in West London and graduated at Portsmouth Polytechnic where he graduated in Sociology in 1982. Akomfrah is best known as one of the founders of the Black Audio Film Collective which was active between 1982 and 1998 which was focused on examining issues of Black British identity through film and media. His first documentry that he produced, Handsworth Songs focused on racial tensions in Britain in the 1980's.

I feel that Akomfrah has had quite a hard life but has tried to make a difference to how people look and percieve people, especially black people. I think that his film will be based on black men and won't have many women included, if there are women included I would say they would be black also.