John Akomfrah is a British-Ghanaian filmmaker and artist renowned for his experimental and reflective works that interrogate history, memory, migration, and the legacies of colonization. Born in Accra, Ghana, Akomfrah grew up during an era marked by political upheaval. His parents’ commitment to activist organizations and independence movements shaped his early years. The overthrow of Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, not only contributed to his father’s untimely death but also compelled Akomfrah and his mother to relocate to Britain, a displacement that would later inform his artistic practice. As a founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective in the early 1980s, he emerged as a pioneering voice in British avant-garde cinema, using archival footage, poetic narration, and non-linear storytelling to challenge dominant historical narratives. (1)

Four Nocturnes, commissioned for Ghana’s inaugural pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, exemplifies Akomfrah’s signature style, layering haunting imagery, fragmented narratives, and rich sonic landscapes to evoke the lingering effects of colonial exploitation. The installation critically examines the devastation wrought by the Scramble for Africa, tracing its impact on landscapes, wildlife, and human lives. 

Akomfrah’s diasporic perspective, rooted in memory and loss, resonates deeply in Four Nocturnes. Through this film, he highlights the silences of history, offering meditative yet urgent reflections on identity, belonging, and the global consequences of exploitation. The film immediately surrounds the viewer with wailing cries, the syncopation of gunfire, the rush of water, and the steady pulse of rhythmic beats. These sonic narratives collide with bursts of natural imagery and archival footage, immersing the scene in an atmosphere of chaos and reflection. Divided into four elemental themes, fire, wind, water, and earth, the film installation connects narratives and perspectives. The work urges viewers to confront the profound far-reaching consequences of colonialism, environmental destruction, and displacement. 

Akomfrah masterfully uses archival images in Four Nocturnes, using recorded historical events to blur the boundary between memory and history. By integrating grainy photographs and vintage film reels into natural landscapes, he further reinforces this connection between history and the environment. These archival materials range across different time periods in West Africa and throughout the African diaspora.  Though not all of the archival images shown depict the Herero people, this analysis will focus specifically on those related to the Herero Genocide, which occurred in present-day Namibia from 1904 to 1908. (2) This historical context is crucial to understanding the events that led to the genocide and the systemic oppression captured in these images. 

Germany’s industrialization in the 1850s led to a significant population boom, resulting in poverty and urban crowding. As a result, the government pursued an aggressive policy of expansionism, participating in the Scramble for Africa. (3) Germany colonized 4 territories: Togoland, the Cameroons, Tanganyika, and Namibia. The Germans deemed South West Africa as suitable for white settlement for its natural resources in diamond and copper mines. They regarded the native African population as a source of cheap labor, denying them the same human rights afforded to white settlers.  

The displacement and oppression of the Herero people was instantaneous. A short-lived rebellion drove people into groups, many retreating to the Omaheke Desert. They hoped to reach the British territory of Bechuanaland, where they would be granted asylum, however, most never reached their destination. Akomfrah references this tragic history through haunting images of the Herero buried in sand, juxtaposed with parallel scenes of elephants succumbing to slow deaths. Through this visual metaphor, he emphasizes the brutal conditions the Herero endured, stranded in a wasteland, dying by the hundreds from hunger, thirst, and contaminated water. The 15,000 who survived, mostly women and children, were forcibly put in concentration camps, where many succumbed to disease, abuse, and relentless labor. Eventually, the Third Reich would follow this model, establishing thousands of camps where Jews and others were systematically killed. (4) This brutal colonial rule culminated in the Herero Genocide, widely regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century, in which approximately 50,000 Herero people were massacred. (5)  

Akomfrah’s use of these harrowing images of the Herero not only recounts their suffering but also suggests the frailty of historical memory itself. Four Nocturnes manipulates these images of the Herero through scenes of burning, with their edges fraying and dissolving into flames, symbolizing the erasure of their history and the fading of collective memory. This is not just about the erasure of the Herero’s physical existence but also about the gradual loss of their story and significance over time—how, without proper preservation or reflection, histories can fade away or be distorted. The film emphasizes how colonization truly destroys one’s personhood, for it doesn’t merely affect the future but also distorts, disfigures, and destroys the past of the oppressed. (6)  

By weaving together archival footage, Akomfrah reimagines fragmented narratives that no longer exist in their entirety, offering a poignant reflection on the silences and gaps left by historical erasure. Additionally, the absence of complete historical data for many of the images deepens this sense of disconnection. This aspect further emphasizes Akomfrah’s view on diasporic lives, and how they are defined by an “absence of monuments that attest to your existence.”(7) In this absence, the very act of compiling and preserving these fragments of history becomes a form of a monument itself. This act of commemoration is a means of creating continuity and remembrance where official histories fall short. Through this, Akomfrah not only critiques the colonial rewriting of history but also invites viewers to grapple with the complexities of remembering what has been forgotten. 

These archival images give Akomfrah the tool to illustrate how displacement and terror shape the experience of the postcolonial identity. Rather than depicting the past as a static record, they reveal it as a dynamic force that continuously shapes our understanding of selfhood. Akomfrah demonstrates that identities are constructed through our positioning within and engagement with historical narratives, showing how the “self” is in constant flux.8 The postcolonial identity is a continuous and incomplete production, and Four Nocturnes forces the viewer to recognize the differences between “what we really are” and “what we have become.”9 These references reflect how the postcolonial identity involves a continual search for connection to a heritage that has been disrupted or erased, capturing the complex trials of reclaiming and assembling a history that colonialism tried to kill. (10) 

Four Nocturnes urges the viewer to consider the interconnectedness of space, climate, and memory. (11) Here, Akomfrah elaborates on how the historical events of colonization are not a “self-contained gesture; it impacts and explodes and takes all kinds of forms and shapes in environments—and it creates environments.” (12) Through the film installation, he shows how the environment, both past and present, absorbs and bears witness to the pain and loss, ensuring that these histories are neither forgotten nor erased. Akomfrah’s reconstruction of lost narratives allows forgotten lives and voices to re-emerge, creating a space where collective memory can reside once more. 

 Bibliography

1. “The Disenchanting World of John Akomfrah,” Frieze, December 10, 2024, https://www.frieze.com/article/disenchanting-world-john-akomfrah. 
2. Clara Ng, “The 20th Century’s First Genocide: Not the Holocaust, but the Herero | Post Conflict Research Center,” Post Conflict Research Center, June 21, 2019, https://p-crc.org/2019/04/06/not-the-holocaust-but-the-herero/. 
3. Shimrit Lee, Decolonize Museums, 2023.
4. Ibid.
5. Clara Ng, “The 20th Century’s First Genocide…” Post Conflict Research Center, June 21, 2019, https://p-crc.org/2019/04/06/not-the-holocaust-but-the-herero/. 
6. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation,” In Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, Wayne State University Press, 1989. 
7. Nina Power, “Counter-Media, Migration, Poetry: Interview With John Akomfrah,” Film Quarterly 65, no. 2 (January 1, 2011): 59–63, https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2011.65.2.59. 
8. Ibid.
9. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation,”, 1989. 
10. Ibid.
11. John Akomfrah, Kowdo Eshun, and Anjalika Sagar, “Conversation. John Akomfrah and the Otolith Group’s Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar: The Filmmakers and Longtime Friends Discuss Contemporary Cinema and Decentering the Human,” Frieze: Contemporary Art and Culture, no. 214 (January 1, 2020): 64–71, https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=7759744 
12. Ibid.