Born in 1818, Frederick Douglass was a visionary African American abolitionist, a prominent orator and a freed slave who became a fierce social reformer and the most photographed man of the nineteenth century. Douglass developed his oratorical skills as a preacher before embarking on anti-slavery campaigns across the northern United States and the United Kingdom. Shot at sites in the US and UK that hold historical significance to the abolitionist’s life, Lessons of the Hour places places Douglass (portrayed by Ray Fearon, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company) within settings alternately pastoral, domestic, and public, from sublime natural landscapes to meticulous recreations of nineteenth century interiors. Its resonating scenes retell and reconstruct aspects of the history of abolitionism, the suffrage movement and the invention of film itself.

Lessons of the Hour is the title of Douglass’ final delivered speech, in which he addressed lynching, suffrage and legacies of colonisation in the post-Civil War American South.

Isaac Julien, CBE RA (born 1960) is a critically acclaimed British artist and filmmaker. In 2018, Julien joined UC Santa Cruz where he is the distinguished professor of the arts and leads the IJ Lab together with Arts Professor Mark Nash. Recent international solo exhibitions include: Isaac Julien: Western Union: Small Boats, Neuberger Museum, New York (2020); Isaac Julien: Frederick Douglass: Lessons of the Hour, ​SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah (2019); Looking for Langston at Tate Britain (2019); and Playtime at LACMA (2019). Julien has previously exhibited at venues including Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013), Art Institute of Chicago (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2012), and Pompidou Centre Paris (2005).