Christina Peake
Aquapelago
(Aquapelago refers to an assemblage of marine and terrestrial elements in which the aquatic spaces are key to community livelihoods and to communities’ senses of identity and belonging)
‘Loci’ is a site-specific project of walking, words and speculative situations in the Sunken Gardens. In this re-envisioning of place, strange mutations take root, entangling past and future to erode our present certainties. ’Loci’ is made up of three elements, the first of which are reinterpretation of plant labels. Here they act as markers citing lost, potential and never-to-be plant specimens, constructing a ghost gallery of imagined and fantastical flora. Visitors are invited to take a misguided tour of these botanical placeholders to consider the site’s deep past and speculative future, and to join Overall for a performative journey around the garden for two live walks. The final component is an immersive, ambulatory poem recorded by Overall to re-enchant the Sunken Garden. Created through attentive walks around and intensive dwellings in the site, this piece examines suspended moments of experience to conjure a palimpsest of place. Listen at home or on site to add another layer.
Exhibition
Saturday 25 – Sunday 26 September, Friday 1 October (First Friday 11am – 8pm), Saturday 2 – Sunday 3 October, Saturday 9 – Sunday 10 October, 11am – 6pm • Sunken Garden
Statement
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.
My 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.
Biography
My fascination with cultures has been nurtured by my English and Bajan parents who were adamant that I should know both sides of my heritage. This lead to significant time spent in Barbados and the South of England visiting family who embodied those worlds to me as a child, and cemented my interest in cultures, art and nature as an adult.
This fascination was to become focused through three threads: cultural plurality, engaging the natural world and storytelling, which today reflects my interest in cosmologies (ranging from aboriginal, people of colour, and indigenous cultures) to where the narratives of marginalised groups and the under-represented sit in relation to the global and national ecology of issues such as the phenomena of climate change and the impact of that on our environment and/or pluriverse.
I read Fine Art at the University of Brighton and later graduated with a MA in Postcolonial Studies from Goldsmiths College. I have 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 an 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.
