LONDON.- Museum of the Home and University of the Arts London (UAL) have collaborated on a new Showcase collection of graduate projects which asks: What objects in your home bring you comfort and connect us to past, heritage or ancestry?

Homes are for nesting. On cold, dark days we festoon our interiors with lights, curl up on sofas with blankets to watch or read. Indoors is the place to be. Whatever the weather, we invite friends and family round to share food, we burrow into beds each night and we fill and decorate our domestic space in a way that reflects who we are.

The collection considers how we fashion our homes to be places of cosiness. It also explores ideas of the unheimlich or uncanny (literally translated as ‘unhomely’) and discomfort.

Many of us remember only too well being endlessly trapped inside during Covid-19 lockdowns. While some welcomed this, for others it was suffocating. The pandemic also sharpened our awareness of how inequalities manifest in homes.

Who had a garden and who didn’t. Who shared space with others and who lived alone. Who spent that time purchasing consumer goods to make the home even more comfortable and who spent it concentrating on the cracks in the walls or the cracks in their family relationships. In the home we really see that ‘the personal is political’.

The objects that bring us the most comfort often connect us to the past, to our heritage or ancestry. The projects in this collection look backwards and forwards. They tap into climate change, alternative histories, myths and folklore and retro futurism. People come to the Museum of the Home to look back in time, recognising what has changed and what hasn’t. In its familiarity and unfamiliarity, Home (dis)Comforts asks: where next?

THE CURATOR

Sonia Solicari is a British curator and has been Director of the Museum of the Home since 2017, a place for visitors to consider the ways we have lived in the past and explore ideas about new ways of living in the world today, revealing and rethinking the ways we live, to live better together.

COMMENTS FROM SONIA SOLICARI

Sleeping Forms - vuyani matibiri - UAL Showcase

“When I saw Sleeping Forms, I thought, wow, this is V&A standard. Vuyani Matibiri has clearly thought carefully about the 3 pieces and their relationship to each other. The lamp’s gorgeous golden glow and the gold detail on the wood adds to the warmth of the pieces, while the harmony between them creates a sense of cosiness and comfort. The designer speaks so eloquently about spirituality in furniture and how design links with ancestry, a way of speaking back through time. There is comfort in looking to the past.”

Unveiling the extraordinary - Diala El Fil - UAL Showcase

“There is a comfort to be found in those domestic tasks that we do all the time like washing dishes. We’re all familiar with the drying rack. This project subverts that by elevating it, ‘unveiling the extraordinary’, asking why we don’t think about chores like this and what they mean. Diala El Fil invites us to embrace a degree of consciousness, and presence in our domestic rituals that we do daily, sometimes several times a day.”

The Alchemy of our Fibers - Shivangi Vasudeva - UAL Showcase

“Folklore and myth, which Shivangi Vasudevawhich mentions, straddle the line between comfort and discomfort. The horizontal design of the pieces brings us closer to nature, aligning designed form with natural form. I thought that was an interesting angle. At Museum of the Home, we think a lot about how we comport ourselves within the home, whether we are upright or laying down, how changes in dress affect the way we move through domestic space. Shivangi’s use of storytelling to question what is familiar, what is othered and what makes us comfortable, is another strength to this project.”

Yorgan - Benan Emre - UAL Showcase

“I love this. There’s something about the quilt form that is so suggestive of comfort and of going inside during the colder months. The idea of the ‘urban nomad’ felt pertinent to now. At Museum of the Home, we’re always questioning what home is. What does ‘home’ mean when you don’t necessarily have a permanent space to live? How is home changing in an age of climate crisis? Yorgan seems to offer real comfort and positivity in an idea of home that circumvents the obsession with homeownership.”

Celebrating Craftsmanship - Vallakiya Umamaheswaran - UAL Showcase

“A beautifully made table where you can have a cup of tea and read a book. I’m interested in those elements of relaxation that continue to resonate in a digital age so with this, the integrated magazine rack shows that we still find comfort in reading printed material. We talk about ‘curling up with a book’. We don’t talk about curling up with Instagram. Although we probably do that more often, it’s not posited as the dream. There is something quite traditional about this piece but in that also quite subversive.”

Një Kafe - Oriona Sejdiu - UAL Showcase

“While the statement for Një Kafe references drinking coffee out, this collection of beautiful ceramic pieces could absolutely be used at home. The incorporation of thermal insulation to keep your coffee warm for longer made me think of the gesture of cradling a cup in your hands. The photographs made me want to reach out, pick them up and hold them. There’s such comfort in a hot drink and in how we design for warmth.”

this all too familiar feeling - Ruby Smith - UAL Showcase

“Samplers have an enduring popularity because they tell stories. Historically, samplers were made by someone, usually a woman, as Ruby Smith says, moving from adolescence into adulthood, and they are a wonderful snapshot into a life, often passed down generations. We’re lucky to have a marvellous collection of samplers at Museum of the Home. There’s comfort in the idea of the past and of diary keeping, of documenting one’s own experiences in a way that you live with – because samplers were often displayed on walls. Here, Ruby Smith has translated that idea into rugs that look both comfortable and sumptuous.”

Gone with the Dodo - Sofia Ortmann - UAL Showcase

“With Gone with the Dodo, we’re really leaning into comfort and discomfort because the project tackles some extremely uncomfortable truths around humans’ environmental impact. It asks the question: how do we live with the discomfort of what we have done to the planet while also getting on with things? There is really something interesting about this work that seems so lovely and warm but brings up serious, challenging issues.”

Post War Drobe - Maria Gil - UAL Showcase

“This project takes us into the realm of the unheimlich, a surreal and unnerving psychological space. The wardrobe is an iconic piece of furniture, from its appearance in fairy tales to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it is seen as magical but also as spaces of comfort, womb-like. Children use them when playing hide-and-seek. You hide your secrets in them. They’re also seasonal – you keep your warm clothes there and then get them out for the winter. Amid all of this, Maria Gil offers an alternative history of wardrobes through ideas around Polish design and the direction it could have taken. A poetic, retro-futurist piece on the boundary between comfort and discomfort.”

آها وسهلاً (Ahla w Sahla - Welcome) - Tiara Rabbat - UAL Showcase

“I like the way this piece considers the role of the guest. At a time of year when the weather is getting colder, we might be welcoming other people into our homes as opposed to meeting them out and the consideration given to the needs of those entering your domestic space is altruistic and beautiful. In this context, comfort is not about your own comfort but about making someone else feel comfortable in your space. The focus Tiara Rabbat gives to that is lovely.”

Now You See Me - Tasnia Zaman - UAL Showcase

“Time and clocks can be both comfort and discomfort. Since clocks became commonplace from the 19thcentury – depending on your circumstances, earlier if you were wealthy – we have increasingly managed our lives through time, both inside and outside the home. There is comfort in that, because it’s always there. But it can also be the thing that is always niggling. Are we doing enough with our time? How do we make the best use of something that is always slipping away? Now You See Me is a positive and poetic intervention, thinking about how we can look differently at a clock. The presentation of time is more visual than numerical. Tasnia Zaman has explored how design can create comfort through a crucial element that not everyone thinks about.”

HI, WELCOME TO MY HOME - Jianing Chen - UAL Showcase

“In the winter, we tend to think about the role of the ancestor, through festivals that happen across cultures, whether pagan practices or more formal religions occasions. There are different ways to think about guests or about who lives with us. Many people think of their homes as a place that includes loved ones that have passed away. HI, WELCOME TO MY HOME looks at how we welcome and create space for them. A beautiful piece to consider at a time when we feel this most acutely.”

Feeling at Home - Hollie Palmer - UAL Showcase

“Holly Palmer mentions the uncanny and the sense of unheimlich certainly comes through in Feeling at Home. Though the medium of textiles and embroidery has a sense of comfort, there is also a surreal element. The works dig into folklore and myth and how you live with the slightly unnerving aspects of those. Seeing food represented in felt, for example, makes you question something that might symbolise home for you. The work succeeds in turning things on their head, while also feeling very inviting.”

The Hermit - Sarah Randall - UAL Showcase

“I love the tarot card reference that inspires The Hermit. A hermit brings their home and their idea of comfort with them. This taps into the question of how you can withdraw from the world and find serenity in yourself, while still perhaps searching for something. These ideas are evident in the film, the storytelling behind it and in the constructed protected space of the piece itself which makes you think of the hermit crab with its shell on its back, taking its home with it wherever it goes.”