Fantôme Créole

Isaac Julien, "Fantôme Créole", video-still, 2005.

 "Fantôme Créole is a four-screen installation which juxtaposes African and arctic spaces. The two actor-protagonists (Vanessa Myrie, who also appears in Baltimore 2002, and dancer Stephen Galloway) are not characters with dialogue and implied interiority, rather they serve to link scenes together between African city- and desert-scapes, and between the arctic north and the arid south. The lack of narrative connection signals an intellectual proposition concerning issues connecting these spaces, as well as Julien's interest in 'creolised' vision - to create new ideas from the movements and connections between spaces. The 'disjunctive juxtapositions' (in film parlance, 'parallel montage') put the spectator in the position of constructing meaning and, through a positioning of screens which forces the viewer to change position to grasp the totality of the presentation, challenge the fixed position that single-screen work entails." Mark Nash