5 MINUTES WITH… MUSEUM OF THE HOME DIRECTOR SONIA S OLI CARI
Real homes are often messy and complex spaces. Whether we live alone or with others, they are epicentres of our hopes and fears, loves and losses – that’s what makes domesticity so captivating. The aim of the museum is to ask, ‘What does home mean to you?’ It’s a subject that’s both universally relevant and deeply personal.
Over the past year, we’ve been forced to think about our homes more intensely than ever. Our ‘Stay Home’ project, which collated lockdown experiences, has shown a greater awareness of things like light, sound and comfort, as well as our relationships with friends, families and neighbours. The role of community is surfacing like never before.
The biggest domestic gamechanger of the last decade is digital connectivity. Many of us have woken up to the possibilities it offers our domestic lives – our ability to work from home or the ease with which many of us can order online for home delivery. This is teamed with tensions around data and privacy and the erosion of boundaries between home and work. My favourite new addition to our collection? I love the ‘Brexit’ egg cups by Harriet Cole. Boiled eggs are such an everyday comfort food but the message of ‘hard brexit/soft brexit’ is anything but comfortable. Homes are political spaces and these egg cups say it all.