Rituals: Union Black
A film capturing the everyday rituals that underscore the rhythms of Black life in the UK, paying tribute to the collective resonances of Black British communities in abundance.
Rituals: Union Black is a moving-image essay archiving the everyday rituals that underscore the rhythms of Black life in the UK. Part ethnographic, part poetic, it celebrates the nuances of the Black British experience. Through worship, weddings, playgrounds, spirituality, birthing, choir, cooking, and movement, Rituals: Union Black pays tribute to the collective resonances of Black life in abundance.
As a counter to London’s monopoly on Black culture, the project focuses on locations outside the capital and highlights the geographical nuances of Black ritual and experience across places such as Sheffield, Chapeltown, Birmingham, and Manchester. It spans a variety of religions and cultures that make up the Black British diaspora. Using an unfiltered, fly-on-the-wall documentary approach, each group becomes the focus of an individual moving-image portrait, emphasizing the many hands that shape, form, sustain, and nurture a community.
Rituals: Union Black centres other modes of remembrance, where remembering becomes a collective activity—through ritual, joy, the mundane, the complicated, and the contradictory—and asks: who and what is archiving for, if not for the community itself?
