Review: 'salt:dispersed' by Selina Thompson

A seasoned performance that grounds us in the narrative of displaced people

salt:dispersed is a film of Selina Thompson’s live performance of the same name, and in 66 minutes explores a deep history of colonisation and what it means to search for home.

Thompson takes us on a journey.

From Birmingham to Antwerp, to Ghana, to Jamaica, to Wilmington and back to the UK, she follows the devastating trail of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and its legacy through brilliant storytelling.

As she smashes a salt brick into pieces in the space on screen, it becomes a great metaphor for the black colonised experience. Displaced. Scattered. Fragmented. The salt pieces remain as a constant reminder.

Potent and poignant vignettes are told in each location covering topics as vast as code switching, racism, objectification, ancestry and the intersection of identities.

The film is heavy at times, as it needs to be, to speak truth to the often unspoken parts of Black history: that Europe was made in blood, for example,or the frustrations of being questioned on ‘where are you really from?’ leading to a lack of true belonging. Yet, Thompson’s performance is masterful. In her brummie accent through repetition, poetic language and pause she is able to convey great emotion and also magic moments of humour as a reprieve.

The recurrent scenes of conversations with her father on Skype where we hear his familiar ‘hmmmm’ as she updates him on her discoveries, seem both grounded and relatable. Similarly, as she sits in front of a palm plant and describes her experiences I am transported to the shores of Jamaica in the warmth and beauty of the recounting.

The symbol of salt is powerful and deep and Thompson and her team carefully guide the audience in stories that bring up much about what it means to be black within the diaspora, what it means to journey to another land and what it means to go back.

 ‘salt : dispersed’ was screened on 15 October at the David Lean Cinema as part of Croydonites Festival of New Theatre 2025.