Culture Now: John Akomfrah in conversation with Karen Alexander

In advance of the release of his latest feature The Nine Muses, John Akomfrah discusses his work to date with curator and consultant Karen Alexander.

John Akomfrah is a film-maker whose documentaries and feature films have won critical acclaim in Britain , Europe and North America. Known principally as one of the founders of Black British cinema, he was born in Accra in 1957 and studied Humanities at Portsmouth University, graduating in 1982. A prolific director, he began making films in the early 1980s as part of the Black Audio Film Collective, which addressed the lack of images representing Black British identity. He made his solo directorial debut with the 1986 documentary Handsworth Songs – recently acquired by the Tate Collection - which screened at Toronto, as have many of his subsequent films, which often deal, like The Nine Muses, with the Black British experience. He is known widely for his installation based work and documentaries. His last installation, Mnemosyne opened at the BFI in 2010. He was awarded the prestigious European Cultural Foundation Laureate in November 2011.

Karen Alexander is currently a senior tutor in the RCA's Curating Contemporary Art department with responsibility for the work-based pathway (Inspire). Prior to that she worked as a film curator and freelance consultant on film exhibition and distribution.