Still images captured by Antanas Budvytis during the film shoot from a series titled Light and Deep Divine Sky, serving as both documentation and as a manifestation of the visuals and motifs of the film Profound Divine Sky. In the film, a series of rituals is performed with repetition and fluid movements informed by the structure of the dress ‘Blue of the Horizon’ made in collaboration with Fiona Powell. The gestures explore the importance of Black bodies reclaiming rural landscapes, ritual practices, and healing modalities from a precolonial perspective.

The project is part of the artist's process of moving from confined studio to domestic space to open landscape after months of lockdown. It draws from a myriad of themes including African metaphysics, ancestrality, Black Scottish Identity, and the legacies of colonialism. The artist breaks away from traditional Scottish photography not only through the positioning of a Black subject in the landscape, but also conjures a long-erased memory that lingers within these liminal spaces, through a non-linear narrative that speaks of inherited past, chaotic present and the potentiality of healing.

Sekai Machache, born 1989

Machache was born in Harare, Zimbabwe but is now based in Glasgow, having graduated from the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee in 2012. Her work is an in-depth examination of the concept of self. She is fascinated by the relationship between spirituality, imagination, and the artist's role in disseminating symbolic imagery in order to provide a space for healing. Sekai utilises a variety of media, including photography. Her photographic practice is based on digital compositions that incorporate body paint and muted lighting to create images that appear to emerge from darkness. In 2020, she received the Morton Award for an artist working in lens-based media, presented by the Royal Scottish Academy. She is an artist in residence with the Talbot Rice Residency Programme 2021-2023. She is a founder and member of the Yon Afro Collective. She works as an Artist Policy Officer for the Scottish Contemporary Arts Network (SCAN). She is also a board of trustee member of the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.