Museum of the Home will open its doors after-hours for a very special Late examining the power of protest. Following the roaring success of the Great Pyjama Party, part of the Museum’s Festival of Sleep, Radical Home will be an opportunity for culture vultures to experience a Late like no other.
This protest party will nurture visitors’ inner radical with a fun-filled look at the entwined histories of radicalism and domesticity. The evening will include tailored tours of the Museum and engaging expert talks. Alongside a creative workshop, late-night explorers will have the opportunity to get creative on the dancefloor as a DJ spins protest anthems.
Highlights include a talk on radical fashion from curator, writer and broadcaster Amber Butchart, who specialises in the cultural and political history of textiles and dress. This includes a look at incredible period clothing the Museum’s curators have brought out of the stores. Guests will be able to look at and touch these pieces on the night as part of the ongoing Re: Collect display. Additionally, acclaimed East London-born artist and designer Rahemur Rahman will reframe the perception of what it means for a garment to be ‘Made in Bangladesh’ by sharing his design expertise to reinterpret and retell stories of identity. This runs alongside his current installation at Museum of the Home, My Home My Bari that will be open for guests to explore as they consider protest, resistance and how we can live better together.
There will be a banner-making workshop drawing on the history of protest, and zine-making to shape the future by creating a new manifesto for living better together. Tours of the Museum will explore varied topics such as Ethan Chinyere, visitor host at Museum of the Home and recipient of a Geoffrey Bond award to research the history of costume, unveils their tour of the Museum’s 1695, 1790, 1937 and 1976 Rooms Through Time examining how clothing styles in those periods sent messages about identity, race, class and station in life to others in society. Marcia O’Connor, a visitor host at Museum of the Home and another recipient of a Geoffrey Bond award to research the history of colonial commodities, leads their tour uncovering histories of resistance in the stories we tell in the Rooms Through Time.
There will be a fully stocked bar and a DJ, East London born and bred multi-disciplinary punk Suresh Singh, known as The Cockney Sikh and famed for DJing on Islington Radio and an appearance on BBC Radio 6 Music alike, spinning a selection of records from his incredible repertoire celebrating protest and resistance. Visitors will be encouraged to chant, sing and dance along to raise the roof as they dance the night away.
Museum of the Home’s Festival of Sleep spent the summer exploring the ways rest and a restful place to call home are disrupted. As the festival closing party, Radical Home: A Museum Late reminds us that the struggles of the past remain in urgent need of our attention today. Guests are invited to come together to share and to make stories, music, art and to dance in protest that cuts across time and cultures.
