Black Gold - Ashanti Harris

Inspired by Foluke Taylor’s words in Unruly Therapeutic: Black Feminist Writings and Practices in Living Room (“stop interrupting the ancestors; and let them finish their sentences; and try not to whine; and replace instructions with permissions”), multidisciplinary artist Ashanti Harris embarked on her own journey of listening. The artist, whose practice spans dance, performance, facilitation, film, installation and writing, has been researching oil since 2019. In this year, the city of Aberdeen was twinned with Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana, after the discovery of oil-producing sandstone on the Guyanese coast in 2015. This relationship founded on extraction is not new to Guyana, it is embedded in the land and its history. From the violence of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, to the industrial mining of minerals extracted from its soils and to oil production offshore, Guyana has a long and complex relationship with violent forms of extraction.

Starting from a place of pressure, intensity, and permission from the ancestors, this film poem is a stream of consciousness in words, images, movements and sounds. Recorded between Scotland, Guyana and Tanzania, Black Gold (2023) is a poetic procession to the bottom of the ocean and into the centre of the earth.

In this episode, Ashanti discusses the inspirations and influences behind the film and more.