Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1984 London, England

Biography

Multi-media artist Larry Achiampong was born to Ghanaian parents in London, England in 1984, growing up in Bethnal Green, East London with his mother and four siblings. From a lower-working class background, he experienced poverty as a child and experienced art through through popular culture, music, films, video games, which would all later inform his work. Achiampong earned his BA in Mixed Media Fine Art from the University of Westminster (2005) and his MA in Sculpture from the Slade School of Fine Art (2008). Upon graduation, he worked with the no-longer extant Kids Company charity, feeling the need to give something back ‘to the place I came from: a lot of those kids have been failed by the government and society’ (Jansen 2022).

Drawing on his Ghanaian roots, Achiampong’s artistic practice encompasses film, graphics, sculpture, sound and live performance, with a particular focus on class, cross-cultural and post-digital identity, especially regarding the Black British experience. Often featuring his futuristic alter egos, such as the mythical soul living in a dystopian parallel life called Black Ph03nix, and the alien-like form known as Cloudface, Achiampong’s work investigate the ‘self’ as a fiction, exploring the intersection between pop culture and the postcolonial position, presenting multiple personalities, challenging the idea of a fixed identity and singular history. Much of his practice is imbued with Achiampong’s concept of ‘sanko-time’. Roughly translating as ‘to go back for what has been left behind’, it alludes to using the past to prepare for the future (artist’s website). Using this concept, conventional classifiers of time dissolve and the viewer is invited, instead, to establish new threads of continuity between past and present, and to reflect on the power to intervene in what otherwise feels inevitable. Often conceived as collaborative projects, his work combines visual and audio materials from popular culture and personal and communal archives documenting the socio-political contradictions of our times, as exemplified by his ambitious multi-disciplinary project Relic Traveller (2017). Encompassing performance, sound installation, moving image, and prose, it took place across various locations, building upon a postcolonial perspective informed by technology, agency and the body, and narratives of migration. Relic Traveller unfolded a range of contemporary issues, such as the rise of nationalism within the global West and tensions surrounding specific moments, such as the United Kingdom’s leave ‘Brexit’ vote in 2016, as opposed to the African Union’s passport programme (also established in 2016), which allowed Africans to travel across all the African states without a visa. A core part of the project was the series of science fiction–inflected short films — Relic 0, Relic 1, Relic 2, and Relic 3. Set in a future where the global West is coming to a point of decline because of nationalism, while the African Union has risen to independence and prosperity, the films document the journeys of intrepid ‘Relic Travellers’ across Britain and the world as they collect remnants from the colonial past. Reflecting on the project, the artist declared that ‘it isn’t about a utopia. This point in time brings with it responsibility […]. The films represent a warning to the West about its negligence, ignorance, mythical approach to history, omission of the histories and legacies of empire, slavery and colonization, and how those things affect the way that we live today: the way that Black people are still disenfranchised’ (Clark 2021).

Achiampong served as Somerset House’s artist in residence (2016–20), and exhibited his Pan African Flag For the Relic Traveller’s Alliance (2017–18) on top of the landmark London building. This flag inspired his 2019 Art on the Underground commission, in which Achiampong reimagined London Underground’s roundel in Pan-African colors — green, black, and red — to refer symbolically to various African diasporic identities and acknowledge their contributions and presence in London. Achiampong arranged these colours and symbols into a form that suggested a human figure in flight: ‘a futuristic icon moving towards unity and equilibrium’ (Somerset House press release). In 2017 Achiampong was selected as one of 19 artists to exhibit in the Diaspora Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale, where he presented his short film Sunday’s Best. In 2019 he won the Paul Hamlyn Artist award in recognition for his practice and in 2020, he was the Stanley Picker fellow at Kingston University. Achiampong was a tutor on the Photography MA programme at the Royal College of Art, London (2016–21) and serves on the Board of Trustees at INIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts). Achiampong's major solo exhibition, Wayfinder, was held at Turner Contemporary, Margate in 2022. Other solo shows include Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2018); Lighthouse, Brighton (2018); Primary, Nottingham (2019); and John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2020). Larry Achiampong is represented by Copperfield Gallery, London. His work is held in UK public collections including Tate, British Council Collection, Government Art Collection and Arts Council England.

Public collections

Related organisations

Elephant Trust (trustee)
INIVA (trustee)
Royal College of Art (tutor)
Slade School of Fine Art (student)
Somerset House (artist in residence)
University of Westminster (student)

Selected exhibitions

Wayfinder, Turner Contemporary, Margate (2022)
When the Sky Falls, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton (2020)
Art on the Underground Commission, Roundel designs for TfL Westminster, London (2019)
Dividednation, Primary, Nottingham (2019)
Larry Achiampong: Relic Traveller - Sank0fa, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2018)
Pixel Perpetual, StudioRCA A---Z Projects, London (2018)
Sunday’s Best, Heart of Glass, St. Helens, Merseyside (2018)
Ain’t No Place Like Home, 1-54, Somerset House, London (2018)
Longplayer Legacies, Lighthouse, curated by Ella Finer, Brighton (2018)
Larry Achiampong: Sunday’s Best, Copperfield Gallery, London (2017)
Voyage of the Relic Traveller, Somerset House, London (2017)
Late at the Library: Ghana Beats, British Library, London (2016)
Sorry You Missed Me’, Royal College of Art, London (2016)
Collections of Collections, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2014)
‘Digital Africa (‘Africa Utopias’), Southbank Centre, London (2014)
African Diaspora Artists in the 21st Century, Iniva, London (2014)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Larry Achiampong]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Larry Achiampong artist