Harold Offeh is an artist working in a range of media including performance, video, photography, learning and social arts practice.
Offeh is interested in the space created by the inhabiting or embodying of histories. He employs humour as a means to confront the viewer with historical narratives and contemporary culture.
He has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally including Tate Britain and Tate Modern, South London Gallery, Turf Projects, London, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Wysing Art Centre, Studio Museum Harlem, New York, MAC VAL, France, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark and Art Tower Mito.
Peckham Platform first worked with Offeh in 2008 (then Peckham Space), commissioning the artist to produce Peckham TV, a collective vision for the future of Peckham. Developed by Offeh and collective The People Speak, Peckham TV began with a period of research carried out by The Mothership Collective into the future of Peckham. During this research with local community groups, it was stated that ‘it is not Peckham that is the problem, it is the media’s representation of it’. The results included a public broadcast event in a game show format and an ‘advert’ for Peckham screened at Peckham Multiplex, the area’s cinema.
In 2010, Peckham Platform (then Peckham Space) commissioned Offeh to create a new exhibition imagining a better future for Peckham. The exhibition, Futurama, captured the spirit of international Worlds Fairs and Expos to chart the journey of Offeh, design team Glass Hill and local young people from Leaders of Tomorrow in a showroom that reimagined and improved the local environment.
In 2016 Offeh set up Platform Press House, a brand new publishing house formed and run by young people from Peckham Platform’s Youth Platform programme in collaboration with the artist.
His work was also part of the 2016 Peckham Platform Retrospective exhibition, a timeline of all 20 artists commissions realised by Peckham Platform between 2010 – 2016.
