This book accompanies the film ‘Tongues’ (2021) which is the documentation of a performance that responds to Maud Sulter’s photo collage series Syrcas (1993), in which she used vintage postcards depicting vast, rural landscapes in Europe and placed images from books on African art and European painting.

The film and accompanying book is a reflection of the process of unlearning. It encompasses ritual and objects that reframe the black female body in relation to spirit and rural space and as a tool in what Adrienne Rich refers to as “re-vision” - the act of seeing with fresh eyes - and the reimagining of black girlhood and womanhood.