black strangers, 2022

Single channel video, 8 minutes 13 seconds

Image descriptions: Image 1 is of some ragged black fabric draped over barbed wire, against a backdrop of out of focus dark forest greenery. Image 2 is of a pair of brown hands sorting through a pile of folded up eighteenth century documents on a black surface, all of them hand labeled with dates and locations. 

Image credits: Stills from black strangers, Dan Guthrie, 2022. 

After seeing him mentioned on a Bishop’s Transcript held in Gloucestershire Archives, Dan goes for a walk in the woods in search of Daniel, a man buried in Nympsfield on the 31st of December 1719 and described on the document as ‘a black stranger’. Whilst walking, Dan talks directly to Daniel, speculating about the parallels between him and his namesake and wrestling aloud with the problems that come with trying to read the archive at face value and fill in its gaps.

black strangers was commissioned for Right of Way, a new feature-length programme that mixes stunning new artists’ commissions with historical archive films that give a bigger picture of questions of access and inclusion in the UK countryside.

black strangers is distributed by LUX, please contact them or the artist directly at dan@danguthrie.net for more information

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Selected screenings and exhibitions



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Right of Way Review
Noo Saro-Wiwa, ArtReview, March 2023


black strangers Screening Notes
 Chrystel Oloukoi, Prismatic Ground, April 2023

black strangers Screening Notes
Emil Vasilache, Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival, September 2023

Acting in Whispers (commissioned essay for Dan Guthrie: Two Films)
Siavash Minoudakeh, Devonshire Collective, November 2023


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