Chicken Run Eco-Gallery - An innovative project that hopes to provide a working gallery space and materials for talented local artists and sculptors.
When we bought umSisi House, we inherited a 200 square-metre chicken house perched above our meadow with exceptional northerly views down the Peebles Valley towards the Kruger National Park.
We have no intentions of reviving the chicken farm which was deemed unviable due to inadequate water resources, so we have decided that when time and funds allow we will create a freestanding, eco-building that exclusively utilises solar energy to provide light, power, hot water and everything else.
Our intention is to create a sanctuary for talented local artists to create, and showcase, their work in a 'working gallery' environment. We will provide our artists with recycled, sustainable materials and hope to attract stone sculptors, wood carvers, wire-workers, beaders and upholsterers into this space which will ultimately offer them a comfortable environment from which to create their masterpieces.
A very small shop will offer our 'artists' work for sale to the public (our own guests and other tourists) and we will also invite a select few who are working with other local communities to showcase, and promote, their own products.
Most importantly, we want visitors to South Africa to witness the exceptional skill that goes into creating the 'curios' or 'works of art' that they purchase to take home with them as memories of their time spent here. We want our visitors to understand how a lump of wood can become a family of elephant or how a roll of wire, and some pretty beads, can become a multi-coloured, anatomically correct bird.
The skill of our local artists is phenomenal and often overlooked. We want to change this. This is our way of contributing to the ethos of 'responsible tourism' and we hope that many of our guests will choose to support this initiative.
For more details, please contact Paddy or Amanda directly.
