Akomfrah installation comes to the Walker Art Gallery this summer
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The Walker Art Gallery is set to present Sir John Akomfrah’s acclaimed Venice Biennale commission Listening All Night to The Rain this summer.
Three of the major film and sound work’s eight ‘Canto’ (movement) sections will be on show at the William Brown Street venue from May 16 to August 31 as part of a UK tour.
Canto I will transform the Victorian gallery’s neoclassical exterior with images and voices from the Global Majority displayed on the building’s imposing portico.
Inside the gallery, visitors will be able to experience Cantos IV and V which include layered soundscapes, archival footage and newly filmed material from around the world.
Listening All Night to The Rain was originally commissioned by the British Council for the British Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024. The title is drawn from the poetry of 9th Century Chinese writer Su Dongpo which was written during a period of political exile.
In his work, Akomfrah – one of Britain’s most acclaimed and respected artist-filmmakers - seeks to address memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change, creating critical and poetic connections across different places and times to encourage acts of listening and looking again, as forms of activism.
Water runs through the work as a connecting thread, while sculptural installations with embedded screens, inspired by the form of religious altarpieces, sit within colour fields influenced by the paintings of Mark Rothko, creating quiet spaces for thought and reflection.
Akomfrah has a long connection to Liverpool. In 1991 he directed A Touch of the Tar Brush, a portrait of the city's multicultural families made in response to JB Priestley's 1934 book English Journey, for BBC2's Think of England, while his 2000 Channel 4 documentary Riot explored the turmoil in Toxteth in 1981 through the eyes of residents, police and community activists.
Above: Sir John Akomfrah outside the British Pavilion 2024. Photo by Jack Hems, c/o British Council
Top: Installation view of Canto V, Listening All Night to The Rain, British Pavilion 2024. © John Akomfrah. Photo by Jack Hems, c/o British Council
Meanwhile his work The Unfinished Conversation was premiered at Liverpool Biennial in 2012.
Sir John Akomfrah said: “I’ve had a long personal and professional relationship with the city of Liverpool, returning many times over the last four decades. It’s always felt to me, like an ever-unfolding conversation between myself, the city, and its communities.
“Many of the themes, stories, people and ideas within my practice draw inspiration from, or find deep resonances with, cities like Liverpool. It is a place shaped by movement, by departures and arrivals, and by stories carried across water.
“To bring Listening All Night to The Rain here, feels less like an arrival and more like a continuation of that conversation - one that Liverpool feels uniquely equipped to host.”
Charlotte Keenan, Head of Walker Art Gallery, added: “We’re delighted to bring Sir John Akomfrah’s Listening All Night to The Rain to Liverpool. Its themes of migration, memory and belonging have a real connection to this city’s history, and to present work of this scale and ambition at the Walker, following its debut at the Venice Biennale, is something we’re very proud of.”
The tour is supported by the Art Fund.
Listening All Night to The Rain opens at Walker Art Gallery from May 16 to August 31 and is free.