Coming next month at the Metro Pictures Gallery is a collection of photographs by Isaac Julien titled Ten Thousand Waves. The photos were taken from a film of the same name and were taken throughout China. What inspired Julien to take on this project was an event that took place in 2004 in which 23 Chinese fisherman drowned one night in England’s Morecambe Bay. In Julien’s film version of this project, actress Maggie Cheung portrays Mazu, the Chinese goddess who is known for rescuing fisherman. Many of the images were produced in Guangxi and Shanghi Film Studio. About this project Julien says, “This project became kind of a search for me. I wanted to look at Chinese culture and an ongoing dialogue with the aesthetic practices of that culture and find my own contribution to that exchange.” Isaac Julien is a London native artist and film maker and a graduate of the St. Martin’s School of Art. Julien’s big break was the 1989 documentary Looking for Langston which illustrates the life of Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. Julien also works as a professor at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in Germany. At the Metro Pictures Gallery (519 W. 24 St.) Opening March 18 and lasting through April 30.
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