Sir Isaac Julien, C.B.E., was born to immigrants in London’s East End. In 1980, he co-founded the Sanfoka Film and Video Collective, a group dedicated to developing Black identity and culture in film. A Ghanaian word from the language Akan, sanfoka means “return and fetch it,” and emphasized that the filmmakers were taking knowledge from the past and using it to benefit the future. Julien’s focus was on filmmaking; he directed documentaries about Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. In his most ambitious work yet, he’s created a visual poem that traces change, adaptation, and survival through two women—one embodying transformation, the other grounded in reality. Drawing from writers such as Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin, the installation imagines identity beyond the human form. Commissioned to celebrate 500 years of Palazzo Te in Mantua, Italy, it now comes to London. —Maggie Turner