McQueen attended Drayton Manor High School in Ealing, West London, where he found his passion for art despite facing racist policies.McQueen working on a film project at Goldsmiths College in 1993.McQueen’s 1997 film Deadpan won the Turner Prize in 1999.McQueen’s 2007 art exhibition “Queen and Country” commemorates British soldiers who died in the Iraq War. The work is a cabinet displaying a series of postage stamp-sized photographs of soldiers along with their names, ages, and dates of death. McQueen created the piece in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum and the soldiers’ families.McQueen’s first feature film, Hunger (2008) depicts the 1981 Irish hunger strike led by Irish republican Bobby Sands. The film won the Caméra d’Or prize for best first feature film at the Cannes Film Festival.McQueen on the set of 12 Years a Slave (2013) with Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played the protagonist Solomon Northup.12 Years a Slave won the Academy Award for Best Picture, making McQueen the first Black director in Oscars history to win the award.McQueen’s latest work, Small Axe, is a film anthology series exploring the experiences of Caribbean immigrant communities in London from the 1960s to the 1980s.
