Sir John Akomfrah Cork Street Banners Commission 2024

Cork Street Galleries, in collaboration with Lisson Gallery, have commissioned Sir John Akomfrah to create the Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission 2024, viewable on Cork Street to coincide with London Gallery Weekend. Sir John Akomfrah’s new work, The Secret Life of Memorable Things (2024) follows on from the artist’s presentation at the Venice Biennale, Listening All Night To the Rain, commissioned by the British Council for the British Pavilion, and continues to investigate themes and motifs that explore memory and the personality (ties) of the object, in a new form. Through surreal and dreamlike tableaux, Akomfrah continues to explore critical and poetic connections between water, images and objects, and the notion that they hold memories and can tell stories in unexpected ways, if only we stop to listen.

Sir John Akomfrah, The Secret Life of Memorable Things, Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission 2024, courtesy Cork Street Galleries and The Pollen Estate. Photo Credit: Luke Hayes

The commission comprises five lines of double-sided banners across Cork Street, with three banners per line and a total of 30 individual artworks, creating one exhibition running from north to south of the street and another exhibition south to north.

A hugely respected artist and filmmaker, Akomfrah’s 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 artists David Lawson and Lina Gopaul, who he still collaborates with today alongside Ashitey Akomfrah as Smoking Dogs Films. Their first film, Handsworth Songs (1986) explored events surrounding the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London through a charged combination of archive footage, still photos, newly shot material and newsreel. The film won several international prizes and established a multi-layered visual style that has become a recognisable motif of Akomfrah’s practice. Other works include the three-screen installation The Unfinished Conversation (2012), a moving portrait of the cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s life and work; Peripeteia (2012), an imagined drama visualising the lives of individuals included in two 16th century portraits by Albrecht Dürer and Mnemosyne (2010) which exposes experiences of migrants in the UK, questioning the notion of Britain as a promised land by revealing the realities of economic hardship and casual racism.

Sir John Akomfrah, The Secret Life of Memorable Things, Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission 2024, courtesy Cork Street Galleries and The Pollen Estate. Photo Credit: Luke Hayes

“It is an honour to be unveiling a new public commission on Cork Street, a space in the heart of London that has been presenting art for almost a century, and so close to the Royal Academy,” says Sir John Akomfrah. “This series of banners that float above the street, The Secret Life of Memorable Things (2024), is a way of bringing a slice of the Venice Biennale presentation to London.”

Sir John Akomfrah, The Secret Life of Memorable Things, Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission 2024, courtesy Cork Street Galleries and The Pollen Estate. Photo Credit: Luke Hayes

Jenny Casebourne, The Pollen Estate, adds: “Cork Street Galleries, an initiative of The Pollen Estate, is honoured to partner with Sir John Akomfrah for our 2024 Banners Commission. London Gallery Weekend is a celebration of the strength and diversity of the vibrant art on view in our capital. As we approach the centenary marking Cork Street’s pivotal role within that rich cultural history, we are thrilled to present this new work by one of the most vital contemporary artists of our time.”

Sir John Akomfrah, The Secret Life of Memorable Things, Cork Street Galleries Banners Commission 2024, courtesy Cork Street Galleries and The Pollen Estate. Photo Credit: Luke Hayes