With some examples running up to 40 minutes, a not inconsiderable amount of time is needed to view the exhibition in full. Julien’s work seems to adhere to the concept articulated by Bardi that “Linear time is a Western invention; time is not linear, it is a marvellous entanglement, where at any moment points can be chosen and solutions invented without beginning or end.” The films unreel at a languid pace and are mainly concerned with real events and historical figures. Seeing a single work by Julien can make an impact if we have the time to sit down and mull it over. But with multiple works, this exhibition is suited to being consumed over the course of an entire day or through several visits – a luxury we all wish we had, but most Tate Britain visitors won’t.

A panel including Isaac Julien will explore the main themes of the artist’s exhibition, followed by an audience Q&A. The Isaac Julien retrospective, What Freedom Means to Me, currently showing at Tate Britain, includes six films selected from across his more than thirty-year career. For the purposes of this review, I am going to focus on just two of them, which examine the lives and work of John Soane and Lina Bo Bardi respectively. That’s true, and while Julien’s work is admirably academic, rich in research and singular points of view, it is also possible, when you are watching the snow fall in Once Again… (Statues Never Die) or the calligraphy strokes in Ten Thousand Waves, that the outside world may disappear for a transcendent moment or two. “That could be a response, and that would be great,” Julien says, a little enigmatically. “That would be a raison d’être, so to speak.” Isaac Julien: What Freedom Is to Me Charting 40 years of the film-maker’s career, this exhibition immerses its audience in slavery, immigration and homophobia. This is cultural activism at its bestEadweard Muybridge’s photographic practice is so familiar to us; it is easy to forget he began his pioneering work over 100 years ago. Muybridge was working on animal locomotion before Picasso was born, and the painter and sculptor Edgar Degas (amongst other artists of that time) used Muybridge’s photographs to understand how to image bodies in motion

Sound is a critical ingredient to Julien’s work. He has said of “Looking for Langston,” an iconic piece from 1989, “Before I was looking, I was listening.” Maidment says, “The sounds carry just as much weight, significance, and meaning as the beautiful image sequences themselves.” She calls them “sonic tapestries” that draw you through the exhibition as it unfolds. “We wanted this spatially to echo the logic of Julien’s practice, crisscrossing through time.” Western Union: small boats and Ten Thousand Waves explore the movement of people across countries and continents. Reflecting on unfinished journeys, Julien connects stories across different times, places and experiences. Tate Britain presents the UK’s first ever survey exhibition celebrating the influential work of British artist and filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien (b. London, 1960). One of the leading artists working today, Isaac Julien is internationally acclaimed for his compelling lyrical films and video art installations. This ambitious solo show will chart the development of his pioneering work in film and video over four decades from the 1980s through to the present day, revealing a career that remains as fiercely experimental and politically charged as it was forty years ago.

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Isaac Julien (born, London, 1960) constantly pushes the boundaries of filmmaking as an art form. His works tell important stories, prioritising aesthetics, poetry, movement and music as modes of communication. Social justice has been a consistent focus of his films, which explore the medium’s potential to collapse and expand traditional conceptions of history, space and time. According to his cinematographer Nina Kellgren, Julien is a “poet” and a “painter” who “trades on the fact that we can all speak images”. If so, he’s fluent in the visual languages of commercial advertising and music videos; on at least one occasion, he even deploys dry ice. Everything is glossy. Nothing is real. A unique chance to hear Isaac Julien discuss his lyrical films and video art with Tate Director Maria Balshaw, followed by a Q&A session. Filmmaker and installation artist, Isaac Julien KBE RA, was born in 1960 in London. His work breaks down the barriers between different artistic disciplines, drawing from and commenting on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting, and sculpture, and uniting 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. The following year, 21-year-old Colin Roach was shot at the entrance to Stoke Newington Police Station and this time Julien felt he had to respond. “I was determined,” he said, “to appropriate video art techniques and repurpose them for the street.” Made with Sankofa Film and Video Collective, Who Killed Colin Roach?, 1983 records the demonstrations that followed and the Roach family’s demand for a public enquiry.

What Freedom Is To Me presents a selection of Julien’s expansive career. Places, events, and historical moments recur throughout Julien’s films: from Notting Hill Carnival, to 1920s Harlem and abolition movements. Vagabondia (2000), filmed in Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, is a fantasy space in which the gallery walls are covered in lush red fabric, echoing the interior of the museum. A fictional conservator tours its spaces at night, imagining the histories behind the objects in the collection. The artist explained: “I used Creole to vocalise the conservator’s thought, and the narration is spoken by my mother, Rosemary Julien … I was trying to explore a version of the repressed histories.” Julien presents a complex layering of sounds and images. This includes footage of Bo Bardi’s buildings, and staged performances of music, voice and movement. It also features readings by Brazilian actors Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres, who portray the architect at different moments of her life. Performances by the dance company Balé Folclórico da Bahia also feature, filmed at the Museum of Modern Art of Bahia. The short journey from the British Museum down to Tate Britain is currently a rewarding trip. The British Museum gives us, with the exhibition dedicated to Shah Abbas, the early 17th century unifier of Iran, a clear comparison as to how a portraitist can contextualise his sitter. Isaac Julien’s films can be beautiful, poetic and powerful, and they can also be frustrating and hard to follow. There are important ideas and concepts in this exhibition, though you may have to filter through the works to find them.

+++ K21 closed on Nov 28 +++

In doing this, the artist holds up a (metaphorical) Soanian convex mirror to its audience and wonders if, confronted with both the official narrative of the museum and its contents alongside a more affective interpretation, our views on the repatriation of historic artefacts would be quite as certain as we might think they are. The photography and films at the Tate are amazing to see individually while powerful when viewed collectively. “Isaac Julien: What Freedom is to Me” reads a little like a conversation, one that takes place between the artist and his past, between poignant historical narratives, between time, space and culture, and between us, the viewer, and the art. Here is A Marvellous Entanglement (2019), honouring the wild architecture of the Italian modernist Lina Bo Bardi, filmed across seven public buildings she designed for Brazil. Some are still in use, with their cave-mouth doors and windows and their curious cylinders of light. Others are derelict, and haunted by the spirit of the architect herself, played by two different women. The Chinese movie turns from monochrome into magenta, cerise, cerulean and lime. Julien’s high interest in colour extends to the aspect of every single thing in every scene. His camera dwells on shimmering makeup, coiffed hair, buttons, stitches and velvet, on honed bodies and chiselled faces, bentwood furniture and the breeze lifting a gauzy blind. It slips in and out of The World of Interiors.

Arts Upskirting, the Moulin Rouge, psychedelia: Impressionists on Paper paints the artists as rebels Read More Vagabondia was filmed in Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. The film focuses on the dreams and fantasies of a conservator walking the halls of the museum at night. She is transported to a dreaming state, imagining hidden histories behind the collection of paintings, sculptures and architectural relics. In this fantasy, the objects appear to fold in on themselves as time and space are collapsed.

Charting 40 years of the film-maker’s career, this exhibition immerses its audience in slavery, immigration and homophobia. This is cultural activism at its best

The essayshighlight Julien’s critical thinking and the way his work breaks down barriers between different artistic disciplines, drawing from film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture by using the themes of desire, history and culture.