Isaac Julien

Isaac Julien is a British artist and filmmaker born in London in 1960. While studying at St Martin's School of Art, he co-founded the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, part of the independent Black British film movement of the 1980s.

Looking for Langston (1989) explored Black queer histories through a poetic engagement with Langston Hughes. His feature Young Soul Rebels (1991) brought together pirate radio, race, sexuality and London's late-1970s subcultures. Julien later expanded into installations using multiple screens, including Ten Thousand Waves and Lessons of the Hour. Across film, photography and gallery work, he combines archival material with staged images to reconsider how cultural histories are represented and remembered.