Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting archival project from the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye  Museum, to record and document how our home lives are changing during the coronavirus pandemic. As part of their Documenting Homes archive. I’ve taken part and it’s easy to do. There are seven open questions around how you feel about your home at the moment while you are spending so much time in it, then you can also upload up to five photographs which you feel sum up your experience. It just took me a few minutes to do and made me reflect on the here and now and what had changed. You can also read other people’s stories which does give a sense of all being in this together if apart. In one talk I listened to last week online someone said we need to remember that everyone’s experience of lockdown will be different and once we emerge not to assume we have all been doing the same thing, Reading these stories really brings this home. Personally, as I’m furloughed, I’m treating it like a sabbat...

Fascinating exhibition at the Geffrye Musuem looking at the development and redevelopment of the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark. The first section looked at the aspirations for the estate as it was being built in the 1960s and 70s. The original tenants enjoyed the good views from the flats and modern fittings. It discussed how unexpected areas, such as the laundry rooms, became meeting points of the community. It then looked at how poor maintenance and bad design of some of the public areas led to social problems in the 1980s. It was found that the raised walkways were problem areas so these were knocked down or blocked off. However I loved the section looking at different flats and showing the good lives people had built there and how they used their flats. Finally looked at the current redevelopment looking at what the scheme wanted to achieve but also the opposition to it by some of the community. The original flats had been built to Parker Morris Standards and were...

Nice exhibition at the Geffrye Museum examining the history of servants over a four hundred year period. The museum used their period rooms and added the echo of the servants who would have been working there. Each room had a story for example the 1745 room included a travelling case to represent the high demand for servants at the time and how often they moved jobs. However it showed the case open as the implication was the lady of the house was searching the bag as a silver spoon had gone missing. The 1870 room represented a family who had recently returned from India with an Ayah for the children. The show pointed out that in the 17th century most young people left home to work in another household and this was how they learnt their place in society and how to run a home. Being a servant was seen as a respected job. However by the late 18th century servants were seen as drudges and ridiculed. I loved the section on the 20th century as I assumed there wouldn’t be mu...

Interesting exhibition at the Geffrye Museum showing work as a result of a project the museum did with the New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre for vulnerable young people. Using items from the collection about homelessness in Victorian London they held sessions to get the young people to discuss and react to their experiences of homelessness today. Each case looked at a different aspect of the project. I loved a set of poems in reaction to a picture of a women’s Salvation Army hostel where the women slept in boxes like coffins in rows. Another section looked at what the young people considered to be the essential items to have when living on the streets. Also a section where people defined what home means when you don’t have one and I loved the one who concluded in a poem “Ho|me, How obvious, it’s me” as “me” is included in the word “home”. The whole thing was thought provoking without being preaching or condescending.