Renown British artist Isaac Julien’s Western Union: small boats (The leopard) 2007, is a monumental film work that sits at the confluence of choreography, geopolitics, poetry, and cinema. Shot across several locations, anchored in Italy, Julien uses the narrative armature of Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film The Leopard and applies it to the modern day politic and visceral reality of global migration, focusing on the Mediterranean passage from Africa to Europe.
Disassembling the boundaries between different artistic disciplines, this work borders the surreal and resonates today as questions about ‘belonging’ and the right to seek a better future haunt global policy, while in parallel migrants bear bodily witness to the failed aspirations of modernity.
Western Union: small boats (The leopard) is presented in partnership with the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and with the generous support of TLE Electricals.
