Steve McQueen

Very few artists win the Turner Prize. Very few filmmakers win an Oscar. Only one person has won both. That person is Sir Steve McQueen, the acclaimed director of Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave, and Widows. With each film, Steve McQueen expanded the scope of his fierce, unflinching gaze – from Irish republicanism, to the Slave Trade in the Deep South – but for his most recent project, he turned that gaze inwards, to the world that he knows most intimately. Small Axe is a love letter to his parents' Windrush Generation, who lit London ablaze with music, politics, and culture, on their arrival from the West Indies. It is the project that Steve McQueen has been circling around and sizing up for much of his life, but only recently felt able to take on.

In the first episode of the new season of Changes, you'll hear a maverick artist unleash the energy and intellect that has become his trademark on a wide array of subjects: the school system; privilege; cinema; Grenfell. This is a conversation about the need for all-encompassing, systemic change – as well as the profound, personal change that comes with setting your own blueprint for success in a landscape hostile to your every creative breath. It's a conversation that will leave you dizzy, angry, and, inevitably, inspired.

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