This exhibition presented John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea, a three-channel video installation that took the viewer on an immersive aural and visual odyssey that explores the greed and cruelty of the whaling industry, the transatlantic slave trade, and the current refugee crisis. This intricately woven cinematic triptych positioned the current crisis of refugees across the globe in a longer historic perspective of race, migration, and commerce. Vertigo Sea was paired with The Deluge, a dramatic depiction of the Biblical flood by the celebrated painter J.M.W. Turner (British, 1775–1851).

Inspired by the contrasting elements and perspectives of the exhibition we developed a simple yet surprising identity that reveals an inverted title made with high-gloss painted vinyl. The typographic treatment is a nod to the and a nod to the ocean waves in both artworks.