Vertigo Sea (2015 video installation)

In its review of the 2015 Venice Biennale, The Guardian called Vertigo Sea as a "pained lyric to a passing world".^[26] 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".^[27]

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".^[28]

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".^[29]

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".^[30]

In 2020, ARTnews ranked Vertigo Sea 2nd among John Akomfrah's five best works, one behind his 1986 film Handsworth Songs.^[31]

• Vertigo Sea at IMDb