Unsweetened Conversations: (bush) Tea Services

Published: 1 November 2021

This part artistic performance- part conversation includes Barbadian visual artist Annalee Davis & Dr. Peggy Brunache with Glasgow-based artist Ashanti Harris, and the husband and wife team behind The Artisan Grower, Robert & Michelle Sullivan.

Unsweetened Conversations: (bush) Tea Services

The Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies in partnership with Glasgow Women's Library, and The Necessary Space in contribution to the CoP 26 Fringe Programme present

Unsweetened Conversations: (bush) Tea Services. This part artistic performance- part conversation includes Barbadian visual artist Annalee Davis & Dr. Peggy Brunache with Glasgow-based artist Ashanti Harris, and the husband and wife team behind The Artisan Grower, Robert & Michelle Sullivan. In this pre-recorded session Davis served (bush) tea, made collaboratively with Heritage Teas of Barbados for the speakers whose ancestral and current homes collectively include Haiti, USA, Guyana, Aruba, Grenada, Ireland, and Scotland. The tea bend, named “Ancestral Voices”, combines breadfruit, mint, and bay leaves with turmeric- some of the traditional ingredients commonly cultivated and consumed by enslaved Africans and their descendants. While drinking this proprietary blend the group engage with a number of topics that links the colonial past with our contemporary present and environmental concerns: colonial memories, shared transatlantic histories, ecological crises, alternative farming practices, spirituality, living apothecaries, extractive economies, the Black Atlantic, Scottish-Caribbean connections, and potential futures.

The video will also be accessible through partnerships’ various platforms:

In addition, the video will be screened live throughout COP26 at several locations including:

  • Glasgow Women’s Library: screening in their welcome space: Tuesday to Friday (11am until 4pm) with late opening on Thursday (2pm - 7pm) and Saturday (12 - 4). 
  • The Necessary Space will share live screening at the Pipe Factory: screening on the ground floor during Conference of the Birds, 5-12 Nov, 11-5 pm. 

First published: 1 November 2021