The de Young presents Isaac Julien: I Dream a World, the first major U.S. retrospective of British filmmaker and visual artist Isaac Julien, on view from April 12 through July 13, 2025.
Featuring ten immersive video installations (from 1999 to 2022) and early single-channel works such as Looking for Langston (1989), the exhibition explores themes including global migration, African diasporic art, gender, race, class, and sexuality. Highlights include Lessons of the Hour (2019), a powerful tribute to Frederick Douglass, recently acquired by the museum, and Ten Thousand Waves (2010), which reflects on the tragic deaths of Chinese migrant workers in Morecambe Bay.
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