Ten Thousand Waves
Description
Join Isaac Julien for an in-depth onstage conversation with B. Ruby Rich and a screening of his latest work, Ten Thousand Waves.
Conceived and created over four years, Ten Thousand Waves interweaves facets of contemporary Chinese culture with some of its ancient myths. Using the 2004 Morecambe Bay tragedy, when more than 20 Chinese cockle pickers drowned off the coast of England, as a jumping-off point, Julien depicts a variety of stories and legends revolving around the sea and its dangers. With the incandescent Maggie Cheung as the sea goddess Mazu and the equally lovely Zhao Tao reenacting scenes from a 1934 Chinese classic called The Goddess, the multi-part film was shot in the remote Guangxi Province and at the famous Shanghai Film Studios as well as various sites around Shanghai. Music is a key element here and Julien fuses traditions from the East and West, with immersive contributions from Jah Wobble and the Chinese Dub Orchestra and Spanish classical composer Maria de Alvear. Julien also incorporates work by calligrapher Gong Fagen, artist Yang Fudong and poet Wang Ping. With such a wide-ranging selection of motifs and elements, Ten Thousand Waves subtextually comments on the challenges and rewards of telling the story of people from a different culture and narrative tradition. It will be shown as a nine-screen composite of the original installation.
Isaac Julien is a British artist and filmmaker whose work incorporates different artistic disciplines, drawing from and commenting on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture, and uniting them to create a unique poetic visual language in audio visual film installations. His 1991 film Young Soul Rebels won the Semaine de la Critique prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Julien was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 for his works The Long Road to Mazatlán (1999) and Vagabondia (2000), and has received wide acclaim for works including Western Union (Small Boats) (2007), Fantôme Afrique (2005),True North (2004), Baltimore (2003) and Paradise Omeros (2002). In 2008 Julien collaborated with Tilda Swinton on a biopic about Derek Jarman which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival the same year. In recent years, Julien has had solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2012); Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (2012); Bass Museum, Miami, Florida (2010); Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2009); Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea – Museu do Chiado, Lisbon, Portugal (2008); Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2006); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2005); and MoCA, North Miami (2005). His 2010 installation Ten Thousand Waves has been on display in over 15 international cities so far, including Shanghai, Sydney, Madrid, Helsinki, São Paolo, Gwangju, Moscow, Miami and London. Ten Thousand Waves was recently on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, projected onto nine double-sided screens in a dynamic arrangement specially conceived for The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium. Julien is represented in museum and private collections throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate; the UK Government Art Collection; Centre Pompidou; the Guggenheim Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum; and the Brandhorst Museum. His most recent work,PLAYTIME, has recently been exhibited at Metro Pictures, New York and as a nine-screen installation at Victoria Miro Gallery, London and Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney.
Film Details
Language Mandarin, English
Year 2010
Runtime 50
Country UK
Director Isaac Julien
Producer Maggie Still
Writer Isaac Julien
Editor Adam Finch
Cinematographer Xiaoshi Zhao
Music Maria de Alvear
Cast Maggie Cheung, Fagen Gong, Jennifer Lim, Ping Wang, Benedict Wong, Zhao Tao
Print Source www.isaacjulien.com