Stones Against Diamonds film by Isaac Julien created for Rolls-Royce, Venice Biennale Stones Against Diamonds film by Isaac Julien created for Rolls-Royce, Venice Biennale
Installation view of Stones Against Diamonds by Isaac Julien created for Rolls-Royce, Venice Biennale Installation view of Stones Against Diamonds by Isaac Julien created for Rolls-Royce, Venice Biennale. Photography Mark Blower
Installation view of Stones Against Diamonds by Isaac Julien created for Rolls-Royce, Venice Biennale Installation view of Stones Against Diamonds by Isaac Julien created for Rolls-Royce, Venice Biennale. Photography Mark Blower

Rocks to riches

22 : 05 : 2015 Rolls-Royce : Isaac Julien : Stones Against Diamonds

La Biennale di Venezia 2015 – British artist Isaac Julien has created a film installation for Rolls-Royce, exploring the definition of preciousness.

  • The film reflects on how materiality influences a designer’s creative process
  • Expounds the merits of semi-precious materials that have taken eons to form

Using Lino Bo Bardi’s book Stones Against Diamonds as inspiration, Julien and his team ventured to remote glacial caves in Iceland to capture the semi-precious stones that inhabit them. Actress Vanessa Myrie is filmed as she takes viewers on a journey through an alien landscape of ice and rock, which adopts a strangely meditative quality. ‘The cave can be read as a metaphor of the unconscious, a place of rich beauty, but difficult to access except through the processes of psychoanalysis and artistic reflection,’ Julien commented in an official statement.

The Big Picture: Stage five of the Luxury Matrix is about challenging your consumers on an intellectual, emotional and spiritual level. By questioning the very definition of luxury, brands can reflect their consumers’ introspection. 

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