Award winning British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien discusses making ‘Ten Thousand Waves’ and his experiences in China. Interview by Monica Chung.
撰文：Monica Chung
Written by: Monica Chung
翻譯：姜嘯然
Translated by: Shoran Jiang
圖片提供：艾薩克·朱利安
Images by courtesy of：Isaac Julien
‘…I’ve promised, my little girl
To come home when the tree blooms
We’ll pick the fruits and sell them to pay for your school
But the wind is cold
My back broken from bending over the sea
Cockling, cockling in the quicksand
The sea is rising to my chest…’
Wang Ping, ‘Small Boat’
In 2006, the award winning British filmmaker Isaac Julien commissioned the Chinese poet Wang Ping to write a poem. This was Isaac’s response to the tragic incident that befell 23 Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay in the northwest of England; cut off by high tides, the workers were drowned on the evening of February 5th 2004.
Ping’s poem ‘Small Boat’ became the genesis for Julien’s ‘Ten Thousand Waves’. This widely acclaimed nine-screen video installation, that holds the Morecambe Bay tragedy at its centre, intertwines Chinese cultural icons with mythic imagery, drawing on events both past and present in China.
20 July 2011 – just before Isaac sets off for a summer vacation, we have tea in his Bloomsbury apartment, to discuss ‘Ten Thousand Waves’ and more…
MC for Monica Chung
IJ for Isaac Julien
MC: What inspired you to make ‘Ten Thousand Waves’?
IJ: It was because of the Morecambe Bay tragedy – I just thought, wow, they came from so far in search of a better life and this really rang with me because my parents came for a better life.
MC:It didn’t make a difference to you then, their nationality? It was because of the long journey they had made, in search of better opportunities and fortune?
IJ: Absolutely, that’s why, in a way, China found me. Forget White Cube and all of the fashioning, it wasn’t to do with that. (White Cube, the London contemporary art gallery recently announced its plans to open a gallery in Hong Kong).
