John Akomfrah

Climate change, 2022, Myungja Anna Koh

John Akomfrah

  The average global temperature has risen to 1.09°C since the Industrial Revolution. The rapid temperature rise is making the earth's ecosystems suffer.​

  Scientists diagnose that if the current climate change continues, humanity will soon face a survival crisis.

The most authoritative report containing these diagnoses by scientists is the report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the United Nations.  ​

   ​According to the report, climate change has had a negative impact on the physical and mental health of people in all study areas. Climate-related diseases are on the rise, and animal and human diseases are emerging in new areas. Some mental illness has been linked to trauma related to rising temperatures, extreme weather events, and loss of livelihoods and cultures.

  ​After 2040, and depending on the degree of warming, climate change will pose numerous risks to nature and human systems. For the 127 key risks identified, estimates of medium- and long-term impacts are many times higher than those currently observed.

by IPCC

  ​This climate crisis is currently ongoing. So, how are artists responding to this climate crisis?

  ​John Acompra is a black Ghanaian artist who grew up in a coal power plant in South London. He said he took a personal turning point on climate change and the environment in 1989 when he traveled to film a documentary about the Exxon oil spill and its catastrophic impact on Alaska's ecosystems.

  It is said that the experience of the oil leak was a blatant experience that showed the destruction of the livelihoods of the Inuit community and the worst colonial exploitation.

​ Since then, Acompra continues to work on the relationship and impact between environmental destruction and climate change and human communities with responsibility and obligation as an artist.

​ His famous work ‘Purple (2017)’ is a work that provides an overwhelming experience to the audience through six images of evidence of climate change and human communities filmed across 10 countries. What 'purple' means is something subtle and unnatural, somewhere between red and blue. In an interview with Purple, Acompra answered that climate change is not a problem that only white people or experts in the northern hemisphere can discuss and respond to, but that anyone can participate in, talk and express.

  Purple is a 62-minute immersive six-channel video installation

John Akomfrah Purple Video Art Installation

  Art is also active in incorporating the climate crisis message into its works. In particular, installation artists are actively carrying out this activity by utilizing the characteristics of the genre. 

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