Vertigo Sea (2015 video installation) explained

Vertigo Sea is a 48-minute immersive three-channel video installation created by the British artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah in 2015. It is a meditation on man's relationship with the sea and explores issues including the history of slavery, migration, conflict, and ecological concerns such as whale and polar bear hunting and nuclear testing. It combines original footage filmed on the Isle of Skye, the Faroe Islands and the Northern regions of Norway, with archival material primarily from the BBC Natural History Unit. It also draws inspiration from two literary works: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville and the poem Whale Nation by Heathcote Williams. It premiered at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015 which was curated by Okwui Enwezor.^[1]

Exhibition history

• Venice Biennale (Venice) May - November 2015^[2]
• Arnolfini (Bristol, England) January - April 2016^[3]
• Kunsthallen Nikolaj (Copenhagen) February - May 2016^[4]
• The Exchange (Penzance, UK) April - June 2016^[5]
• CoCA (Christchurch, New Zealand) May - August 2016^[6]
• Design Exchange (Toronto) October 2016^[7]
• Turner Contemporary (Kent, UK) October 2016 - January 2017^[8]
• Whitworth (Manchester, UK) March - July 2017^[9]
• Talbot Rice Gallery (Edinburgh) October 2017 - January 2018^[10]
• SFMOMA (San Francisco) March - September 2018^[11]
• New Museum (New York City) June - September 2018^[12]
• The Store X 'Strange Days' (London) October - December 2018^[13]
• The Phillips Collection (Washington) June - September 2019^[14]
• The Johnson Museum (New York) September - December 2019
• Secession (Vienna) February - June 2020^[15]
• The Rooms (St John's, Canada) February - July 2020
• Seattle Art Museum (Seattle) March - September 2020^[16]
• CAAC (Seville) November 2020 - March 2021^[17]
• MAC Montréal (Montreal) February - April 2021^[18]
• Fundació Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona) February - June 2021^[19]
• Towner Gallery (Eastbourne, UK) May - September 2021^[20]
• National Museum Cardiff (Wales, UK) October 2021 - June 2023^{[21] [22]}

Soundtrack

The original soundtrack was composed by Tandis Jenhudson.^[23]

Reception

In its review of the 2015 Venice Biennale, The Guardian called Vertigo Sea as a "pained lyric to a passing world".^[24] The Guardian's Adrian Searle provided a more in-depth review for the 2016 Arnolfini exhibition in Bristol, describing it as a "visual assault...ravishing and awful, sublime and depressing".^[25]

The Arts Desk described it as an "epic meditation on mankind's relationship with the watery world" and "an elegantly choreographed 48-minute montage across three screens". It concluded that "there's no stronger way to get people to act than by showing what we stand to lose".

In its review of the 2017 Whitworth exhibition in Manchester, the New African magazine stated that it is "an enthralling montage of perplexing images and sounds, it consistently throws the viewer into scrutinising current heightened concerns on race, identity and migration".^[26]

Afterimage described the "constant shifting and layering of sound and image across three large screens" that "creates an immersive spectacle and affecting experience that compels viewers' eyes, ears and emotions." It also highlighted the film's soundtrack, with sound borrowed from tragic opera arias, overlaid and intermingling with natural sounds and a "melancholic ambient score by British composer Tandis Jenhudson, which together suggest a funerary requiem".^[27]

In their reviews of the 2018 Strange Days exhibition in London, Time Out stated that Vertigo Sea "steals the show with its lyrical, poignant and often shocking meditation on the Atlantic as a place of historical trauma, while the Evening Standard's Ben Luke described it as an "epic, elemental three-screen masterpiece".

The Cornell Daily Sun, in its 2019 review of the Johnson museum exhibition, described it as "stunning both in its beauty and horror" stating that "Akomfrah creates a visual installation that is overwhelming in its size and stimulus but with the purpose of remembering that the world remains a truly complex and weirdly beautiful place".^[28]

In 2020, ARTnews ranked Vertigo Sea 2nd among John Akomfrah's five best works, one behind his 1986 film Handsworth Songs.^[29]

References

1. Web site: John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea. 2021-03-29. Arnolfini. en-GB.
2. Web site: art-agenda. 2021-03-29. www.art-agenda.com. en.
3. Web site: John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea. 2021-03-29. Arnolfini. en-GB.
4. Web site: John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea www.nikolajkunsthal.dk. 2021-03-29. www.nikolajkunsthal.dk.
5. Web site: John Akomfrah Vertigo Sea. 2021-03-29. Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange. en-GB.
6. Web site: Vertigo Sea CoCA Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki. 2021-03-29. coca.org.nz.
7. Web site: 7 Things We Want to See at Nuit Blanche Toronto. 2021-03-29. canadianart.ca.
8. Web site: Akomfrah's 'Vertigo Sea' travels to Turner Contemporary. 2021-03-29. www.lissongallery.com.
9. Web site: John Akomfrah Whitworth Art Gallery. 2021-03-29. www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk.
10. Web site: John Akomfrah / Vertigo Sea Talbot Rice Gallery. 2021-03-29. www.trg.ed.ac.uk.
11. Web site: Sublime Seas: John Akomfrah and J.M.W. Turner · SFMOMA. 2021-03-29. SFMOMA. en-US.
12. Web site: John Akomfrah: Signs of Empire. 2021-03-29. www.newmuseum.org. en.
13. Web site: 2018-07-12. Immersive exhibition Strange Days to transform Brutalist building in London. 2021-03-29. The Spaces. en-US.
14. Web site: The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement. 2021-03-29. www.phillipscollection.org. en.
15. Web site: Contemporary Art Daily » Blog Archive » John Akomfrah at Secession. 2021-03-29. contemporaryartdaily.com.
16. Web site: John Akomfrah: Future History MAR 5 – SEP 7 2020 at Seattle Art Museum. 2021-03-29. John Akomfrah: Future History. en-US.
17. Web site: 'John Akomfrah: The Earth is Flat' at CAAC Seville. 2021-03-29. www.lissongallery.com.
18. Web site: John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea. 2021-03-29. MAC Montréal. en-US.
19. Web site: John Akomfrah. 2021-03-29. Fundació Antoni Tàpies. en-US.
20. Web site: John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea - Exhibition at Towner Eastbourne in Eastbourne. 2021-03-29. ArtRabbit. en.
21. Web site: The Rules of Art? . 2022-06-18 . National Museum Wales . en.
22. Web site: 2022-06-18 . Destination masterpiece: 75 great artworks to see across the UK . 2022-06-18 . the Guardian . en.
23. Web site: Spice. Anton. 2015-05-30. 10 incredible sound and music works at the Venice Biennale 2015. 2021-03-29. The Vinyl Factory. en-US.
24. Web site: 2015-05-11. Venice Biennale: the world is more than enough. 2021-03-29. the Guardian. en.
25. Web site: 2016-01-25. John Akomfrah's Vertigo Sea: human and natural history meet at the abyss. 2021-03-29. the Guardian. en.
26. Web site: 2017-05-18. Vertigo Sea: depicting migration. 2021-03-29. New African Magazine.
27. Glessing. Jill. 2017-01-01. Review: John Akomfrah: Vertigo Sea. Afterimage. en. 44. 4. 38–39. 10.1525/aft.2017.44.4.38. 0300-7472.
28. Web site: Hockenberry. Erin. 2019-09-09. The Dizzying Power of Vertigo Sea. 2021-03-29. The Cornell Daily Sun. en-US.
29. Web site: Greenberger. Alex. 2020-06-16. John Akomfrah’s Best Films, Ranked: Strange Futures, Black Identities in Flux, Earthly Damage, and More. 2021-03-29. ARTnews.com. en-US.

External links

• Vertigo Sea at IMDb