Making ‘Waves’

Isaac Julien’s Ten Thousand Waves titillates the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Requiring four years and a 100-strong crew to create, plus nine video screens and a surround-sound system to display, it’s no understatement to call Ten Thousand Waves, from British artist Isaac Julien, a mammoth undertaking. Inspired by the Morecambe Bay Tragedy, in which two dozen Chinese cockle pickers drowned off the coast of England in 2004, the exhibition is billed as a meditation on unfinished journeys, globalization and the rise of China on the world stage. The work itself inundates viewers with sensory information via immersive, oscillating sound and stunning footage, much of which was shot on-location in remote Guangxi Province, on China’s border with Vietnam. The installation is on view through Dec. 1.  Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 1100 Kettner Blvd., downtown, 858.454.3541. mcasd.org