Sir John Akomfrah’s Arcadia charts five centuries of global transformation

Sir John Akomfrah’s Arcadia unfolds across five screens at the Natural History Museum, a meditation on five centuries of planetary consequence. The work moves through archival footage, vast landscapes and scenes of trade and industry, weaving together the histories that connect us: migration, colonialism, ecological rupture and the relentless movement of peoples, plants, animals, commodities, technologies, diseases and ideas between the Americas and Afro Eurasia beginning in the fifteenth century.

This is cinema as historical reckoning. Akomfrah, whose practice has long examined the layered complexities of cross cultural exchange and environmental catastrophe, constructs a visual argument that resists easy summary. The five channels do not harmonise; they fragment and recombine, forcing the eye to move and the mind to hold multiple narratives at once. Maps with their geometric promises sit beside human figures; industrial scenes give way to coastlines; silhouettes backlit against gradient skies speak of journeys undertaken and transformations endured.

Arcadia premiered at Sharjah Biennial 15 and was subsequently shown at The Box in Plymouth before reaching London. The museum’s classical architecture, with its soaring glass and ironwork, provides an unexpectedly resonant setting for a work that interrogates the very systems of knowledge and collection that institutions like this have long embodied. The installation remains on view until May 2027, offering ample time to return, to sit with the work’s layered imagery and to consider the long shadow the Columbian Exchange casts across the contemporary world.

Imagery courtesy of Lisson Gallery (@lisson_gallery).