The Centre for Studies of Home (CSH), an agenda-setting university-museum research partnership between Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of Home (MoH), has pioneered a socially, spatially and temporally expanded understanding of home, helping to diversify museum exhibitions and strengthen engagement with residents.
Issue
The research focused on six under-represented priority areas at the museum, identified and agreed by staff at Queen Mary and MoH.
Approach
Founded in 2011, CSH set the agenda for research on home within and beyond geography and provides a model for an effective and sustained university-museum research partnership.
Academics, postdoctoral fellows and postgraduate students in geography and across the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary collaborated with staff from the curatorial, learning and engagement teams at MoH.
Impact
CSH has provided the framework to support the museums move to a socially, spatially and temporally expansive understanding of the home and has shaped a more inclusive approach to collections and exhibitions. Research is now a core activity at the museum which supports the development of displays and exhibition programmes.
CSH has diversified MoH’s exhibitions and collections strategy into under-represented priority areas. For example, 'The Aylesbury Estate as Home' exhibition addressed social housing for the first time, and 'Inside teenage bedrooms' exhibition reflected young people’s cultural practice and stimulated intergenerational dialogue.
The exhibitions have reached diverse audiences through school learning resources, performances, talks, tours, community holiday projects, and private view events.
The work has strengthened MoH’s engagement with its locality and enhanced residents understanding of home, for example, through artist-led workshops and short films. The app-based audio-walk ‘Home-city stories’ offers a chance to hear the voices of different ages and ethnicities living in the same neighbourhood in Hackney, and has helped residents think differently about issues of community and belonging.
More information
Institution: Queen Mary University of London
Researchers: Professor Alison Blunt, Professor Alastair Owens, Professor Catherine Nash