what’s in your barrel?
During the time apart families try to stay connected through phone calls as well as the shipping of barrels filled with goodies, clothes and household items back to the Caribbean as a form of support and a token of affection. Children parented in this way are referred to as “barrel children”.
Once these barrels reach their destination in the Caribbean they are emptied, kept and repurposed. They remain dotted around the landscape – in back yards, in the spaces between houses and in the corners of rooms. Once a source of excitement and abundance, they become a persistent and haunting reminder of everyone who has left.
Lisa Harwood, Barrel Stories
Through works such as ‘Barrel Stories’ the barrel is reimagined as more than only a physical representation of investment and care. It is also a representation of connections fractured or strained by migration, of (mis)communications and changing communities.
Thinking about our barrels is a reminder of the tensions and challenges inheritant in the experience of migration, for those who leave and those who are left behind, as well as for those who grow up between cultures.
This activity calls on you to think about what you would put in your barrel - the things, thoughts, feelings, memories that you would send across borders. Alternatively, you might want to think about what you would want to receive in your barrel - stories, lost histories or traditions, foods, experiences, or feelings that you would want shared with you.