Open Day: A Social Life of Peat project

Open Day: A Social Life of Peat project

Saturday, December 2nd 2017 10:00am - 4:00pm
Learning Room, Shetland Museum and Archives

Learning Room, Shetland Museum and Archives
Free event, no booking required

Berenice Carrington presents a one-day display of the outcomes of three workshops during which participants explored and recorded their connections to peat in Shetland. Ideas raised during the workshops will contribute to an exhibition in 2018 titled A Social Life of Peat.

Six broad themes about peat emerged during the workshops:

  • childhood,
  • stoves,
  • work in the hill,
  • bogs as places that preserve things,
  • peat as a particular form of landscape, and
  • peat a substance that makes its own mark on the environment.

The display also includes 13 historical photographs of peat in a range of social contexts that were selected from the Archives by Ian Tait, Curator Shetland Museum and Archives. Acknowledging the role of social media, the display also includes two examples of peat themed posts on the Facebook group page Stories an Photos Fae Yell.

Participants used diaries to record their ideas and experiences of peat. Excerpts from these diaries are included in the display. For example, Cilla Robertson records the sensation of pulling on a boot with a hunchy clock inside. Elaine Thomason takes inspiration from an historical newspaper clipping about the discovery of a body in a peat bank in Foula to consider the bodies buried in her family’s peat banks. Colourful watercolours by Berenice Carrington explore the evocative names of the old stoves, such as Enchantress, Diamond, and Duchess. These are just a few of the topics brought to life by the peat diaries that these artists will go on to develop into artworks for the forthcoming exhibition.

Category: Arts and Crafts (Adult), Exhibitions