isaac julien
true north - fantôme afrique
june 23 to august 20, 2006
The kestnergesellschaft is delighted to host the first solo exhibition in Germany by the celebrated British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien. The exhibition will present Julien’s critically acclaimed films True North and Fantôme Afrique, alongside associated photographic series. Here Julien will present the works as complex, triple-screen audiovisual installations.
True North – Fantôme Afrique develops Julien’s preoccupation with notions and expressions of diaspora, and the creolising of space and crossings. The works explore the impact of location – both cultural and physical – to rich effect through a juxtaposition of opposing global regions.
True North, shot in the spectacular landscapes of Iceland and Northern Sweden, is conceived around the expedition and writings of Matthew Henson. One of the key members of Robert E. Peary’s 1909 Arctic expedition, Henson, an African-American, was controversially and arguably the first person to reach the North Pole. Actor Vanessa Myrie (Baltimore, Fantôme Afrique) is re-cast as Henson in Julien’s version of the expedition, which emphasizes the psychological journey as much as the physical one.
True North’s counterpart, Fantôme Afrique, weaves cinematic and architectural references through the rich imagery of urban Ouagadougou, the centre for cinema in Africa, and the arid spaces of rural Burkina Faso. The film is punctuated by archival footage from early colonial expeditions and landmark moments in African history. Renowned choreographer and dancer Stephen Galloway (Ballet Frankfurt) and Vanessa Myrie figure as ‘trickster/phantom‘ and ’witness’ in this carefully composed meditation on the denationalized, de-territorialized spaces born of the encounters between local and global cultures, where the ghosts of history linger amid the realities of the day.