Sir Isaac Julien (b 1960) is one of the UK’s leading artists working in film and video, celebrated for his poetic yet astutely political films and video installations that reflect on the intersection of power, politics and personal experience through the lens of identity, race and sexuality.

 

Published to accompany the first comprehensive survey of Julien’s work in a US museum setting, and the largest exhibition focusing on Julien’s film and video installation works to date, Isaac Julien: I Dream a World charts the artist’s evolution from a filmmaker working in a single-channel cinematic context to an artist redefining the possibilities of the filmic experience through spellbindingly beautiful and complex choreographies of image, movement and sound. It emphasizes Julien’s shared concerns across the Black diaspora with the inclusion of works shot in and across the Americas and the Caribbean that situate his work in a global dialogue. By addressing the pressing social and political issues of our time, in particular the movement of peoples and ideas across different continents, times and spaces, Julien asks viewers to reconsider the grand historical narratives of the global north anew.

 

This catalogue features newly commissioned essays and archival materials, many previously unpublished, that relate to the works in the exhibition and give important insight into the artist’s working process and recognition of the archive as a vital repository of history and memory. Paperback, 320 pages.