Gettin’s House – an installation created especially for the Barn by artist Christina Peake.

The onsite installation ran from the 9 - 25 July 2021 and is now closed. However, you can still download Christina Peake’s engaging audio stories, twilight walks and collaboration with Shane Strachan. Listen here!

We are continuing to work with different groups sharing the family art packs within the community.

Gettin’s House is a vibrant and immersive onsite installation and series of digital works created by Bajan British artist Christina Peake. Responding to the particular culture and nature of North-East Scotland, Christina playfully intersects her learning with stories from her own imagination and wider themes of Caribbean and Scottish diaspora. Combining environmental awareness, individual testimony and cultural narratives in a vivid and playful way, Gettin’s House is a richly-layered project and the first presentation of Christina Peake’s work in Scotland.

Commissioned by the Barn as part of the ‘Becoming Earthly’ Seminar Series,  Gettin’s  House  by Christina Peake  includes an installation on site at the Barn  and  accompanying digital content, including downloadable immersive walks and self-guided learning packs for all ages.  

Discover the installation   

Some years  ago, when Christina was in  Barbados,  she visited her grandmother’s close friend called  Gettin.  Gettin’s  house was hard to find,  located in the rural Scotland District of Barbados where a dirt road was easily missed.  Gettin  lived  in  an old chattel house. Chattel houses were the original mobile housing for those working on the plantations since British colonisation in 17th century and is particularly synonymous  with Black Bajan heritage.

Together this work explores  themes of Caribbean and Scottish diaspora  from the perspective of the artist and draws in the emergent relationship with the Barn’s creative networks and audience,  bringing  together learning  and  the cultural, communal and environmental intersections between them.   As part of this commission, Christina has been collaborating with Aberdeen-based writer and performer Shane Strachan and will interweave her rich and vivid Afro-Caribbean traditions with Doric storytelling. (Click here to watch Shane’s performance.)

This project is a unique opportunity to discover the history and connections between Aberdeenshire, Scotland and the Scotland District of Barbados.

 Gettin’s  House is an installation of a ‘Chattel  House’ and also exists as children’s playhouse embedded within a coral reef, created out of recycled fabric from offcuts of tartan, African prints and Christina's personal collection. The  accompanying  projected landscape and soundscape  captures  the Scotland district of  Barbados.  Pre-recorded stories by the artist can be played within the house and landscape by visitors to the installation.  

This work is an intimate act by  Christina  who  creates  a home for others  which can  be shared by communities  connected to the Barn. For over 25 years the Barn has been a home for performance and storytelling.  Christina’s work  represents  a transference of the artist’s childhood imaginary worlds into an immersive experience to be encountered on our site and re-listened to and relived beyond the life of this commission.   

 

Discover the  Gettin’s  House  Storytelling  packs  

Each visiting group  to  Gettin’s  House will receive an activity pack to create on site or at home. This links directly to the unique stories told by the artist, of Salt, Redleg, The Kite Competition, The Giddy Gede & the Hard Gede and 'Lament Nae Mair For Me, My Love'.  They can be imagined as  a talisman  signifying  the collectively of cultures and communities. 

The pack includes:  

• A  kite-making kit made from plastic bags collected by the artist with instructions on how to make. Also includes offcuts of fabric from  Gettin’s  House which can be connected as a kite tail.  
• Papercut of one of three characters to make shadow puppets to play out the stories and create new ones within the world of the installation.
• Written instructions and links to audio stories

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, each pack will be sealed, visitors can  choose  to open and handle this during their experience of the installation, or the packs can be taken  away, constructed, discussed  and  played with  at home.    

 

Family Walks 

  Listen to the description of a walk in Barbados with the sounds of the evening  as dusk settles, where the mongoose rustles and the grass snakes hiss, where the fig trees matt together on the hillsides to become one mass, hiding entrances to caves and underwater river systems.   

 Ahead of the installation of  Gettin’s  House,  Christina  has created twilight family walks which trace a path through her  British and Barbadian heritage.  These evening walks are best enjoyed during dusk. As you embark on your sensory walk Christina invites you to consider if your experience of your own familiar landscape changes when walking two paths at the same time.   

Click here to listen to the guided walks.

Gettin’s  House family weekend  (9 - 11 July 2021)

 To mark the opening of Gettin’s House, we are hosting an interactive  family weekend with storytelling and activities that explore the themes of the work. Join North-East writer and performer Shane Strachan as he shares Doric tales and ballads alongside an exploration of Christina Peake’s Bajan-rooted stories in our Wild Garden on Friday and Saturday.

Whilst outdoor early years practitioner Mandy Tulloch will guide young and old to discover the magic of outdoor play and how to get creative with your natural surroundings on Sunday.  Gettin’s  House will be open all weekend, tickets include timed entry to the installation, a creative family pack and access to all of the activities.

Watch our interview with artist Christina Peake and Simone Stewart, Head of Creative Programme.

 About the Artist 

“My art practice draws on individual testimonies and historical narratives to create new worlds. I seek to absorb bodies of knowledge and immerse myself in natural worlds, people, community and place to weave together stories in artworks and engagement programmes.” 

Christina Peake read Fine Art at the University of Brighton and later graduated with a MA in Postcolonial Studies from Goldsmiths College. Her practice is research led. It involves fieldwork, primarily focused on communities and the natural environment, and it is grounded in learning, engagement and immersive experience. 

Christina has worked in the UK and internationally with different communities such as the  Kukama indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon, ex-offenders and women exiting prostitution and substance misuse with the charity Women at the Well in Kings Cross, London. She is currently a Lead Educator for The Black Curriculum. 

Christina seeks to share her stories and receive the stories of others with care, deepening her contribution to communities and the environment.

www.christinapeake.com