ASHANTI HARRIS: William Grant Foundation Residency, 2019

To Eigg, Saturday 26th Jan 2019.                                                                                                                                                                  In Sweeney’s Bothy.  Just arrived.  The rain is moving between pouring and stopping.  Today I will be slow.  I boiled water, made tea.  The fire is going.  The wind is blowing.  I found some ginger oat biscuits.

Whilst on residency I’m thinking about two ideas in parallel: this idea of dreams and reality being one and the same.  Thinking about when your reality is closer to absurdity and your dreams become your escape.  This is paralleled with the ways in which ‘History’ has two faces.  Its substance is in the past, but its form is of the present.  Therefore, it is filled with our contemporary morals, ethics and ideologies and our hopes and aspirations for the future.

Navigating the landscape of Eigg and thinking about:

  • The relationship between defeat and defiance
  • The binaries that exist in the adjective “honourable”
  • The catharsis of islands
  • The means to which one might “survive”
  • Parallel narratives and Conflicting narratives
  • Ideological narratives

 Notes on sunset times:

  • 16:19 Dim but definitely still light.
  • 16:30 Starting to look more dim but not dark and would still be happy to cycle.
  • 16:47 Definite twilight. I would want to be close to home by now.
  • 16:53 Sky is still light but land is dark. Eyes don’t focus well. Twilight.
  • 17:10 Dark. Well and truly night time. But the sky is a dark shade of blue.

Ashanti Harris, Hair, 2019.

Camera: Jen Martin.

Filmed on the Isle of Eigg, supported by Bothy Project with William Grant Foundation.