Isaac Julien (born 1960, London, England) is a Turner prize-nominated filmmaker and installation artist whose work breaks down the barriers between different artistic disciplines. His work draws from and comments on film, dance, photography, music, theater, painting, and sculpture, and unites them to construct powerful visual narratives through multi-screen film installations. His 1989 documentary-drama exploring author Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance titled Looking for Langston garnered Julien a cult following, while his 1991 debut feature Young Soul Rebels won the Semaine de la Critique prize at the Cannes Film Festival. He participated in the 57th Venice Biennale at the inaugural Diaspora Pavilion in 2017 with Western Union: Small Boats. His international exhibitions also include the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), 7th Gwangju Biennial (2008); Prospect 1, New Orleans (2008); Performa 07, New York (2007) and documenta 11, Kassel (2002). Julien has taught extensively, serving since 2018 as Distinguished Professor of the Arts at the University of California Santa Cruz, where he established the Moving Image Lab with fellow professor Mark Nash. In 2017, Julien was the recipient of The Royal Academy of Arts Charles Wollaston Award and appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was awarded a Knighthood (Knight Bachelor) for services to Diversity and Inclusion in Art in The Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours List (2022). In 2023, Tate Britain organized a survey exhibition presenting four decades of Julien’s work for the first time in the United Kingdom.
Artist Isaac Julien and scholar Celeste-Marie Bernier reunite to discuss the making of Lessons of the Hour, a ten-screen film installation described as an immersive and “poetic mediation on the life and times of Frederick Douglass.” Douglass (1818–1895) was a visionary African American writer, abolitionist, and a freed slave, who was also the most photographed man of the 19th century. Julien’s compelling portrait foregrounds the continuing relevance and urgency of Douglass’s words in present day. Bernier collaborated with Julien on the film narration, which was informed by some of the abolitionist’s most important speeches—such as “Lessons of the Hour,” “What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?” and “Lecture on Pictures”—and the film’s representations of the influential women in Douglass’ life.
About the Presenters
Celeste-Marie Bernier is chair of United States and Atlantic studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Dorothy Kayser Hohenberg Chair of Excellence in Art History at the University of Memphis (2024-2025). She is the author, editor, and curator of over 85 books, exhibitions, essays, and digital educational resources. Her forthcoming books include Douglass Family Lives: The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Collected Works and Biography: Book 1-6 and The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Selected Writings: A Reader. She is the recipient of a UK Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship Award for her current project, Sacrifice is Survival: Black Families Fighting for Freedom in the USA and Canada (1732-1936). She served as a 2022-2023 Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University.
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