"Vanessa Walking on Beach" is a production still taken from Isaac Julien’s film “True North.” In the film, protagonist Vanessa Myrie retraces the footsteps of Mathew Henson, a black man who has been overlooked as one of the first people to reach the North Pole, despite being a companion and accomplice to the man daubed with that accomplishment, Robert E. Peary. The film is engulfed in the crisp and bright whites of the snow and sky, with contrasting moments of overwhelming darkness. The monochromatic setting serves as an exploration of the representation of whiteness, the disappearance in darkness, and the heroic white masculinity that is lent to exploration stories. In Julien’s own words, “…you have this absence/presence kind of thing: that which is what is absent from history and that which is present and is implied in the whiteness of the ice or the blue hues of it.”
