Conceived of as a ten-screen installation (excerpted above is the newly made single screen), which premiered at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York, in 2019, and a number of related photographic artworks, a selection of which are on view in this exhibition, Lessons of the Hour reflects on issues of social justice that shaped Douglass’ life’s work. It is informed by some of Douglass’ most important speeches, such as Lessons of the Hour (in which he addressed the shocking phenomenon of lynching in the post-Civil War American South), What to the Slave Is the 4th of July? and Lecture on Pictures, a text that connects picture-making and photography to his vision of how technology could influence human relations. For Douglass, photography was envisaged as a way of achieving autonomy over the way in which African Americans could be represented. It signalled not only truth but also empowerment. Julien’s work gives expression to the zeitgeist of Douglass’ era, his legacy and the ways in which his story may be viewed through a contemporary lens. It is a forceful suggestion that the lessons of the abolitionist’s hour have yet to be learned.

Created in consultation with Douglass scholar Celeste-Marie Bernier of the University of Edinburgh, and based on original archival sources, letters and writings, the work imagines the person of Frederick Douglass through a series of tableaux vivants. It gives life to Douglass’ relationships with other cultural icons of the time. These characters were chosen by the artist for being representatives of ideals of equality and pioneers in the history of civil rights, and include African American photographer JP Ball; Douglass’ wives Anna Murray and Helen Pitts; and Anna and Ellen Richardson, the English Quakers who enabled Douglass to return to the United States as a free man.