The chief curator and Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Curator

of contemporary art 

at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

John Akomfrah is one of the pioneers of

experimental art cinema in the UK.

In 1982 he was a fonder of the "Black Audio Film Collective"

and he is currently the director of "Smoking Dogs Films"

John is an artist I have known a long time

and I knew his work would be perfect for

an exhibition I was organizing in New Orleans

a city-wide triennial called 

"Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp"

John made this work specifically for that occasion

It premiered in fall of 2017 and the 

Nasher Museum came on board 

to produce and commission the work

It has since then become part of our collection 

here at the museum

and we are very proud to have it in the collection



Hi my name is John Akomfrah

I'm an artist/filmmaker born in Ghana in Accra 

I've lived and worked in London pretty much all my life

Behind me is "Precarity" which is my latest piece

It's 46 minutes long

The central figure of "Precarity" is 

jazz legend Buddy Bolden

He's a legend because everyone 

credits him with being the father of jazz

but actually no one knows a thing about 

his life or his music

So "Precarity" is an attempt to try and make sense

of what constitutes a legend