Purple by John Akomfrah

British artist and filmmaker, John Akomfrah creates his most ambitious piece to date – an immersive six-channel video installation addressing climate change, human communities and the wilderness.

We provided the sound supervision, design and mix for this incredible piece. The film was mixed and delivered in 22.2, where we custom built a 24 speaker mix rig at our studios in Tottenham Hale. The film premiered at the Barbican in London and has since screened at galleries around the world.

At a time when, according to the UN, greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are at their highest levels in history, with people experiencing the significant impacts of climate change, including shifting weather patterns, rising sea level, and more extreme weather events, Akomfrah’s Purple brings a multitude of ideas into conversation. These include animal extinctions, the memory of ice, the plastic ocean and global warming. Akomfrah has combined hundreds of hours of archival footage with newly shot film and a hypnotic sound score to produce the video installation.

Winner of the 2017 Artes Mundi Prize.