Bounty: Steve McQueen in conversation with Paul Gilroy (SOLD OUT)
Artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen joins us to discuss his new book, Bounty, in conversation with writer and critic Paul Gilroy. Published alongside McQueen’s solo exhibition at De Pont Museum, Tilburg, in March 2026, the book develops McQueen’s exploration of colonial history and its legacy through photographs of Grenada’s flora. Taken on a trip to the island in the summer of 2024, these images reckon with the connections between landscape and historical trauma, studying Grenada’s plant life as permanent markers of beauty in a land ravaged by exploitation. Taking as his touchpoint the late Saint Lucian poet Derek Walcott’s elegy to his mother, ‘The Bounty’, McQueen’s project adopts a similarly poetic sensibility, attuned to the resilience of the island’s landscape and the dualities of the word ‘bounty’, which alludes to both the generosity of nature and the sum paid to slave catchers.
In partnership with MACK
Steve McQueen is a film director, film producer, screenwriter and artist based in London and Amsterdam. Surveys of McQueen’s work have been held at the Art Institute of Chicago (2012); Schaulager, Münchenstein (2013); Tate Modern, London (2020); and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2022). He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Turner Prize (1999); the WEB Du Bois Medal, Harvard University (2014); and the Johannes Vermeer Award (2016). McQueen directed the feature films Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013), Widows (2018), and Blitz (2024); the documentary Occupied City (2023); the series Small Axe (2020), an anthology of five films shown on the BBC and Amazon; and Uprising (2021), a three-part documentary series for the BBC. McQueen won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes Film Festival for Hunger in 2008, and an Oscar for Best Motion Picture for 12 Years a Slave in 2014.
Paul Gilroy is a writer and critic. He was formerly Professor of the Humanities at UCL.
MACK is an independent publisher of award-winning books on contemporary art, critical theory, film and architecture, working with pioneering creative minds and institutions across the globe.
Bounty by Steve McQueen will be available to buy at the event.
This event will take place in person at The London Library. Doors (and the bar) will open at 6.30pm for a 7pm start. Please see our Event Access Guidelines before you arrive.
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