The healing effects of bush tea: A conversation with Barbadian visual artist Annalee Davis

by Janine Mendes-Franco

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Published in Global Voices

2020

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Cerasee bush, just one of the many medicinal plants that can be used to make bush tea, drying. Photo by Sammy Davis, courtesy of Annalee Davis, used with permission.

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Bush tea — infusions of indigenous plants and herbs deemed to have medicinal properties — is still fairly well-consumed in the Caribbean. Barbadian visual artist and cultural activist Annalee Davis is taking the concept to a new level through her work around the well-known drink.

In a region still grappling with the fallout from colonialism and slavery — trauma that is rooted to the land — Davis’ project, “Bush Tea Plots,” seeks to develop post-plantation regenerative strategies. The result is a progressive interweaving of agriculture, economics, art and history that has the potential to not only make Caribbean people reframe the past but build on that resilience to create a hopeful future, tackling challenges like climate mitigation and COVID-19 head-on.

The fact that Davis’ studio is located on a dairy farm that used to be a 17th-century sugar plantation makes her discoveries even more tangible, as her art and writing literally engage with the shards of that history.

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(Bush) Tea Services at The Empire Remains Shop, London, UK, 2016. Photo byTim Bowditch. Image courtesy Annalee Davis, used with permission.

Imagine going to London, setting up a pop-up tea shop as part of an exhibition that delves into the implications of “selling back the remains of the British Empire […] today,” and using it as an opportunity to reframe the conversation about a shared, traumatic history using indigenous strains — known throughout the Caribbean as bush tea — of Britain's signature drink.

That's exactly what Barbadian visual artist and cultural advocate Annalee Davis did as part of her ongoing work into the ways in which shared historical suffering reveals itself and how this trauma — much of which remains unaddressed — is managed, on both individual and national levels.

Her exploration is deep intersectionality of art, agriculture, economics and history which, far from being relegated to plantation societies of the 17th century, have relevance in modern-day issues. In this second installment, we discuss the spillover.