Isaac Julien CBE was born in London, England on 21 February 1960, to St Lucian émigré parents and graduated in 1985 from Saint Martin's School of Art, where he studied painting and fine art film. He co-founded Sankofa Film and Video Collective in 1983, and was a founding member of Normal Films in 1991; his 1989 documentary-drama 'Looking for Langston' gained him a cult following. His installations form fractured narratives that reflect critical thinking about race, globalisation, and representation; In 2001 he was nominated for the Turner Prize and in 2018 he was made a Royal Academician (RA).
Filmmaker Isaac Julien was born in London, England on 21 February 1960, to St Lucian émigré parents. He graduated in 1985 from Saint Martin's School of Art, London, where he studied for a pre-foundation course and a BFA in painting and fine art film. He co-founded Sankofa Film and Video Collective in 1983 and was a founding member of Normal Films in 1991. His 1989 documentary-drama exploring author Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance Looking for Langston garnered him a cult following, while his 1991 debut feature Young Soul Rebels won the Semaine de la Critique prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Julien played a leading role in the 1980s' new wave of independent black cinema. His pioneering multi-screen film installations and photographs incorporate different artistic disciplines to create a poetic and unique visual language. His works form fractured narratives that reflect critical thinking about race, globalisation, and representation. Through the recovery of foundational figures such as Hughes, Julien pays tribute to key activists in the field of anti-racist and anti-AIDS struggles, and thereby claims a discourse in which the figure of the black queer is doubly marginalised: devoid of a history and, with it, its referents.
In 2001 Julien was nominated for the Turner Prize for his film installations The Long Road to Mazatlán (1999) and Vagabondia (2000). The following year his work was exhibited at documenta 11, Kassel, Germany. In 2015 Stones Against Diamonds was shown as part of the Rolls-Royce Art Programme at the 56th Venice Biennale, the same year in which he also presented Kapital and directed Das Kapital Oratorio. In 2016 the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne and The Whitworth, Manchester co-acquired Ten Thousand Waves (2010), a film inspired by the Morecambe Bay tragedy of 2004, in which 23 Chinese cockle-pickers drowned on a flooded sandbank off the coast in northwest England, as part of the Art Fund’s Moving Image programme. In 2017 Julien participated in the 57th Venice Biennale’s inaugural Diaspora Pavilion with Western Union: Small Boats, a film dealing with the phenomenon of African migration to Sicily.
Julien is a trustee of the Art Fund and a patron of the Stuart Hall Foundation in London. He has taught extensively, holding posts including Chair of Global Art at University of Arts London (2014-16). In 2017 he was awarded a CBE. Later the same year he received the Charles Wollaston Award for most distinguished work at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition and in 2018, he was made a Royal Academician (RA). Julien's latest projects include Lina Bo Bardi – A Marvellous Entanglement, dedicated to the life of the iconic Brazilian modernist architect, and Frederick Douglass: Lessons of the Hour, dedicated to a pivotal figure in the history of abolitionism and social reform who delivered anti-slavery campaigns across the northern USA and the UK. Isaac Julien currently lives and works in London and in Santa Cruz, California, having been appointed Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of Santa Cruz in 2018. Together with Arts Professor Mark Nash, he leads the Isaac Julien Lab, which provides a community of postgraduate students with a practical experience in curation, installation, and production of moving-image work. His work is held in multiple public collections in the UK including the Government Collection and Tate.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Isaac Julien]
Publications related to [Isaac Julien] in the Ben Uri Library