Ashanti Harris is a multi-disciplinary artist, researcher and lecturer in Contemporary Performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Working with dance, performance, facilitation, film, installation and writing, Ashanti’s work disrupts historical narratives and reimagines them from a Caribbean diasporic perspective. As part of her practice, Ashanti co-facilitates the British Art Network research group The Re-Action of Black Performance alongside artist and curator, Sabrina Henry; is co-director of the company Project X – platforming dance of the African and Caribbean diaspora in Scotland; and works collaboratively as part of the collective Glasgow Open Dance School (G.O.D.S) – facilitating experimental movement workshops and research groups.
Her recent research projects have explored: Dance of the African and Caribbean Diaspora in Scotland; Guyanese Women in Scotland in the 18th and 19th Centuries; and Oil’ Dorado – exploring relationships of extraction between Scotland and Guyana. Ashanti is currently taking a sabbatical from teaching to undertake a new performance research exploring Caribbean carnival performance aesthetics in a diasporic context.
Recent commissions and exhibitions include: An Archive: The Rehearsal, Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh (2022); Dancing a Peripheral Quadrille, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh (2022), The Ignorant Art School: Sit-in #2, Cooper Gallery, Dundee (2021/22); An Exercise in Exorcism, GoMA, Glasgow (2021) Opening Night, Timehri Film Festival, Georgetown (2021), JUMBIES, Glasgow International, Glasgow (2021); This Woman’s Work, Third Horizon Film Festival, Miami (2021); Radio Space, Borealis Festival, Bergen (2021); Miraculous Noise, Viborg Kunsthal, Viborg (2021); OHCE, Radiophrenia, 87.9fm (2020); Being Present, OGR, Torino (2020); In The Open, The Common Guild, Glasgow (2020); The Index Impulse, Alchemy Film Festival, Hawick (2020); Pre-Ramble, David Dale, Glasgow (2020); The Skeleton of a Name, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2019); Second Site, Civic Room, Glasgow (2019); Walking Through the Shadows Eyes Open, SUBSOLO Laboratório de Arte, Sao Paolo, (2019).
