A new exhibition developed by the Geffrye Museum in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London researchers, explores the hidden histories of home, and how people imagine and engage with the lives of those who lived in their homes before them.
The Geffrye Museum - specialising in the history of the home - presents Who Once Lived in My House?’ from 24 September 2013 to 9 February 2014.
The exhibition explores some of the things that people have found out about their homes, as places where other people once lived.
The exhibition is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of Living with the Past At Home: Domestic Pre-habitation and Inheritance, a research project by Professor Catherine Nash, Dr Caron Lipman, Dr Alastair Owens and Professor Alison Blunt from Queen Mary’s School of Geography and the Centre for Studies of Home - a research partnership between Queen Mary and the Geffrye Museum.
Their work explores people’s understandings of, and attitudes to, their home’s past, from the physical things they inherit – whether it is messages on the walls or a child’s height chart on a door frame – to their knowledge of previous inhabitants’ class or culture.
“Our exhibition features some of the past inhabitants of people’s homes, and looks at how their stories were uncovered. It addresses some of the complex ways people reflect on the significance of these former residents in order to get a sense of their past and their home,” comments Dr Caron Lipman.
Who Once Lived in My House? is located on the Lower Concourse Area of the Geffrye Museum, Shoreditch, London. The Museum is open 10am-5pm, Tuesday – Sunday. Entry is free.
For more information about the Living with the Past at Home research project, visit http://livingwiththepastathome.com/activities/
For more information about undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Queen Mary's School of Geography visit www.geog.qmul.ac.uk.
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