Black Earth: Resistance, Anti-Racism and the Environment (Publication & Workshop)
Black Earth: Resistance, Anti-racism and the Environment (2025) is a new publication born out of the Black Earth workshop held at Jersey Museum & Art Gallery in December 2023. This artists’ book captures the spirit, creativity, and collective insights of workshop participants and facilitator Dr. Zakiya McKenzie as they explored the intersections of racial and environmental justice.
Dr. Zakiya McKenzie, a celebrated nature writer and researcher with interests in natural history, climate justice, and the movement of plants between the Caribbean and Europe, facilitated the Jersey workshop and produced the publication with The Moving Arts Collective. Her contributions include excerpts from her powerful nature writings and original poetry, including excerpts from Testimonies on the History of Jamaica Volume 1 (2021). Her writing offers a profound lens through which to consider the links between the climate crisis, systemic inequalities, and colonisation.
Designed by Laura Böttcher, Black Earth artists’ book also includes reflections on climate justice, poetry written by participants during the workshop, and artistic contributions such as illustrations by Kiera Melville and Karen Le Roy Harris, and collages by Dr. Zakiya McKenzie. It also features a poignant poem, The Tree, from the late Linda Rose Parkes, a poetic commentary from Jersey on the relationship between literature and nature.
“The role of literature and art in fostering a consciousness that resists the exploitation of both nature and people is central to Black Earth. Through the creation of this artists’ book, we aimed to embody this role—crafting an alternative narrative while encouraging deeper engagement, conversations, and concrete actions around environmental justice. This is what Zakiya inspires, that a testimony to the truth is an artistic endeavour, an act of de-colonisation, a call upon the possibility of change.”
This project is supported by The Jersey Community Foundation with funds from the Channel Islands Lottery. The workshop was also supported by Jersey Heritage. The workshop was inspired by the tiata fahodzi theatre company and Watershed project Black Earth: Resistance, Anti-Racism and the Environment.
Please email: themovingartscollective@gmail.com to get a limited print copy of the publication £5.00 + p&p. Alternatively you can download a copy for free here. Copyright of The Moving Arts Collective and Dr. Zakiya McKenzie.
Dr. Zakiya McKenzie is a writer, researcher, and cultural historian based in Bristol. Her work explores the intersections of colonialism, environmental justice, and the movement of plants between the Caribbean and Europe. She has a PhD in English from the University of Exeter on the history of Black British newsprint and is about to start a new role as a Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol.
Her past residencies include Forestry England and Studio Voltaire. She has published several works, including her Rough Trade Books historical fiction pamphlet Testimonies on the History of Jamaica Vol. 1 that explores the natural and social history of Jamaica in 1655 – the year Britain took the colony of Jamaica from Spain. In 2023, she won the Olivette Otele Prize in Black British Studies for her paper ‘The Making of the Empire Windrush as a cultural motif’. Zakiya's writing has appeared in numerous anthologies including: Haunting Ashton Court: A Creative Handbook for Collective History-Making (2023), Radical Landscapes: Art, Identity and Activism (Tate, 2022), Reading the Forest: A Forest of Dean Anthology (Douglas McLean Publishing, 2022), Women on Nature: An Anthology of Women’s Writing about the Natural World in the East Atlantic Archipelago (Unbound, 2021), Gifts of Gravity and Light: A Nature Almanac for the 21st Century (Hodder & Stoughton, 2021) and The Wild Isles: An Anthology of the Best of British & Irish Nature Writing (Head of Zeus, 2021).