National Theatre of Scotland and Push The Boat Out are delighted to present Blood, Salt, Spring – a visual album from one of Scotland’s most exciting and challenging voices - Hannah Lavery, Edinburgh’s new Makar and Associate Artist at the National Theatre of Scotland (The Drift, Lament for Sheku Bayoh). This poetic digital meditation explores ideas of nation, race and belonging.

The album features visual poems written and performed by Hannah Lavery with new composition performed by the late award-winning musician Beldina Odenyo and is presented for online audiences in a digital album created by filmmaker Beth Chalmers in collaboration with Natali McCleary. The project is a continuation of the themes explored in Thirteen Fragments, a digital artwork created during the pandemic, in association with the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Blood Salt Spring – a visual album reunites the original creative team.

Blood, Salt, Spring - a visual album is a lyrical and powerful digital accompaniment to Hannah Lavery’s recent debut collection of poems Blood Salt Spring, published by Polygon, and was originally shared visually as part of Hannah’s performance piece Blood, Salt, Spring during the Push The Boat Out Festival in 2021.

Intergenerational trauma, in particular the legacy of colonialism, racism, and the reality of living through 2020's political and cultural shifts and shocks, slowly makes way for healing in Lavery's work. She has learned how to heal the salted wounds and move out of her winter and into spring - into hope.

Hannah Lavery, lead artist said

This album is based on poems from my debut collection,Blood Salt Spring, with a soundtrack from the late Beldina Odenyo and visuals from film maker Beth Chalmers in collaboration with Natali McCleary.  

We had all first worked together making the film, Thirteen Fragments, and this was in some ways a continuation of that project- a deeply personal piece but yet speaking to a wider experience for women and especially women of colour in Scotland.  In making the work we talked a lot about the power of art to inspire and demand empathy- that empathy is the first step to change. This audio-visual album is then, an invitation to sit with us, but it is also a provocation- who gets to speak and who gets listened to?" 

More information and booking details here

A National Theatre of Scotland and Push The Boat Out co-production