John Akomfrah recognised in UK New Year Honours list

1 January 2023

Congratulations to John Akomfrah who has been announced as the recipient of a knighthood in the King’s New Year UK Honours List for 2023.

The New Year Honours List for 2023 recognises the achievements and service of extraordinary people across the UK. Akomfrah was a co-founder of the pioneering Black Audio Film Collective in the 1980s. He documented the consequences of the 1985 Handsworth Riots in Birmingham in his award-winning 1986 film, Handsworth Songs.

Since being made a CBE in 2017, he has been exhibiting at major museums worldwide, and won the world’s biggest art prize, the Artes Mundi, in 2017. He presented his largest film installation to date, Purple, in 2017 at the Barbican in London addressing climate change, human communities and the wilderness. He debuted his work Mimesis: African Soldier in 2018 at the Imperial War Museum in London. In 2019, he participated in the inaugural, critically acclaimed Ghana Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, with his latest work Four Nocturnes. In 2022, on its 10th anniversary, his filmic art installation The Unfinished Conversation was remounted as part of Birmingham 2022 Festival. He has an exemplary record in pro bono governance, including the boards of the British Film Institute and Film London, and in education.