Vagabondia
Project description
Vagabondia is a film installation by Sir Isaac Julien CBE RA (b. 1960, London), whose practice combines poetic visual storytelling with critical explorations of Black identity, history, migration and place. Julien has played an important role in expanding the possibilities of film within contemporary art, bringing together cinematic language, choreography, sound and installation.
Originally commissioned for the exhibition Retrace Your Steps: Remember Tomorrow, curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Cerith Wyn Evans at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, Vagabondia was filmed within the museum’s atmospheric interiors. The work explores presence, absence and the residues of history through the figure of a wandering dancer, whose movement disrupts and reimagines the architectural and cultural history of the institution.
The title refers to the figure of the ‘vagabond’ — someone who moves outside established classifications and passes between different parts of a city, cultures and social orders. Julien connects this history of movement with the idea of the ‘black economy’, reflecting on the role of Black people in facilitating free trade while questioning the social boundaries imposed upon them.
Soane’s Museum, with its eclectic architecture and collection, becomes a site through which Julien considers how meanings attached to movement and identity change over time. The wandering figure moves through the museum as both visitor and intruder, challenging fixed ideas of belonging and revealing the tensions between cultural memory, institutional history and lived experience.
Following its original presentation, Vagabondia was included in Cinerama, an exhibition that also featured Julien’s three-screen installation The Long Road to Mazatlán. Together, the works demonstrate Julien’s distinctive synthesis of choreography, cinematic composition and sound, while exploring desire, diaspora, cultural memory and the movement of bodies through space.
Bio
Isaac Julien (b. 1960, London) is a British artist and filmmaker whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses film, video, photography and installation. His work explores race, sexuality, migration, memory and identity through poetic, multi-screen moving-image installations that combine cinematic storytelling with choreography and sound.
Julien studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art and co-founded the Sankofa Film and Video Collective in 1983. He has exhibited internationally at institutions including Tate Britain, Victoria Miro, MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Hayward Gallery and the Venice Biennale. Major works include Looking for Langston (1989), The Long Road to Mazatlán (1999), Ten Thousand Waves (2010), Playtime (2014) and Lessons of the Hour (2019).
Recent major exhibitions include What Freedom Is To Me at K21, Düsseldorf (2023), The Point of View at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2024), and Isaac Julien: I Dream a World at the de Young Museum, San Francisco (2025), the first major retrospective of his work in a US museum. In 2025, Julien also premiered All That Changes You. Metamorphosis at Palazzo Te in Mantua, a ten-screen installation presented through February 2026.
Julien was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001, awarded a CBE in 2017 and elected a Royal Academician in 2022. His recent work has continued to be presented internationally, including at the Royal Academy in London and Victoria Miro, London.
Project details
Year: 2000
Artist: Isaac Julien
Work: Vagabondia
Commissioned and produced by: Film and Video Umbrella
Venue: Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
Exhibition: Cinerama
Developed in partnership with: Cornerhouse
Supported by: National Touring Programme, Arts Council England; British Council; Dance Umbrella
Additional support: London Film and Video Development Agency; Victoria Miro Gallery; Rosa de la Cruz
Format: Film installation
Country: United Kingdom