Museum of the Home Ticket Portal

Sunday 7th September, 2-4pm

Discover Indian Block Printing in this hands-on workshop inspired by the textiles an ayah (nanny) might have brought with her from India in 1878. Explore the rich history behind this centuries-old craft, learn traditional techniques, and create your own printed fabric to take home.

Led by Isabela from Haveli Diaries, this session celebrates the beauty of handmade textiles and the cultural stories they carry across time and place.

The session will begin with a brief introduction by Isabela, exploring the history of block printing and its significance in Indian textile traditions. She will also provide insights into A Townhouse in 1878 and its connection to stories of migration and craftsmanship.

Participants will then have the opportunity to experience this centuries-old technique firsthand – choosing from hand-carved wooden blocks and printing their own unique patterns. By the end of the session, each participant will have their own hand-printed cushion cover to take home, carrying forward a tradition that has spanned generations.

Tuesday 9th September, 7pm

Join us for a rare screening of The Lovers and Fighters Convention (Dir. Mike Wield, 2009), a powerful documentary capturing the spirit of Transfabulous — the UK’s first major trans-led arts festival. Founded in 2006 London by Serge Nicholson and Jason Barker, Transfabulous created urgently needed space for trans and non-binary artists to tell their own stories through performance, cabaret, film, and community events. Against a backdrop of limited legal recognition and mainstream invisibility, the festival became a hub for joy, resistance, and radical creativity. The film offers an intimate look at this moment of collective cultural transformation, grounded in DIY practice and political urgency. 

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Serge Nicholson, co-founder of Transfabulous and a key figure in UK trans arts and activism. Now also a psychosexual therapist, Nicholson will reflect on the cultural legacy of the festival and the creative power of trans community-building in the 2000s.

This event is part of Undomesticated – Gender Defiance in the Home, a free screening series from TGirlsonFilm exploring queerness in the noughties through moving image works that defy gender norms and domestic expectations. Free entry – all are welcome. 

Friday 12th September, 6-8pm

Enjoy exclusive first-look access to a stunning array of ceramics, from beautifully crafted functional stoneware to unique sculptural pieces. This launch event for Ceramics in the City gives you early access to the exhibition before the fair opens to the public the following day.

Mingle with the talented artists and makers, discover the stories and inspiration behind each piece, and find the perfect ceramics to add to your collection or home. Don’t miss this opportunity for a more personal, behind-the-scenes experience of the fair.

In this Tatreez Embroidery hands-on Workshop you will be introduced to the history and symbolism of Tatreez, the traditional Palestinian art of embroidery. Working with Aida fabric, you will learn basic stitching techniques and complete a small motif to take home, carrying with you a piece of cultural resilience and beauty. 

This talk explores the rich history of the Huguenot silk weavers, French Protestant refugees who brought exceptional textile skills to England following persecution in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many first settled in coastal towns such as Canterbury, Dover, and Sandwich, before establishing thriving weaving communities in London, most notably in Spitalfields. 

Renowned for their intricate designs and technical innovation, Huguenot weavers revolutionised English silk production and set new standards in fashion and design. Their industry flourished for over a century, but eventually declined due to changing tastes, industrialisation, and competition from imported fabrics. 

Today, the legacy of Huguenot craftsmanship lives on in contemporary fashion and textile design, with echoes of their motifs, techniques, and entrepreneurial spirit still visible on the catwalk and in the studio. 

Following the talk, Lara Dix and Ailsa Hendry will present Huguenot silk samples from the Huguenot Museum and Museum of the Home collections for study. This will be a rare opportunity for close observation of fragile Huguenot silks typically kept in collection stores.

Join artist and activist Alice Gabb for a workshop exploring the radical history of banner making. From peace campaigning to trade unions, Alice will provide examples that have inspired and shaped her own practice, exploring the visual culture of social movements and resistance. 

Alice will guide you through banner construction and how to choose appropriate materials as you create your own banner. Through hand stitching and techniques such as applique and embroidery, you’ll sew a symbol that speaks to us about freedom, peace, liberation and resistance. 

30 cm x 40cm long banners will be provided. Basic hand sewing skills are helpful but not required. 

Sunday 28th September, 2-5pm

Join textile and embroidery artist Cris Prete for a patchwork quilting workshop inspired by a c.1890 Victorian ‘Crazy’ Quilt found in Museum of the Home's collections.

During the workshop, you’ll create a 15cm square panel, which can be used as the beginning of a larger quilt, a patch or pocket to be added to clothing, or a finished artwork in its own right.  

The first half of the workshop will focus on foundation piecing through hand stitching to begin creating your quilt. In the second half, you’ll explore techniques for embellishment and embroidery to ornament your piece. 

Upcycled fabrics, embroidery threads, and embellishments will be provided, but you’re encouraged to bring any materials to personalise your creations.

This creative workshop is open to ESEA women who are neurodiverse SEND (no need for diagnosis).

Join our exhibiting artist, Alison Lam in “Holding Space” - a relaxed creative workshop for ESEA women activating the mind the gap display at the Museum. Lam will guide conversations around diaspora identity and neurodiversity, while teaching participants to transform paper into lotus flowers – a recurring motif in Lam’s work that features as paper dipped in wax, porcelain and bronze. There will also be some reflective writing exercises. 

“The lotus flower grows from muddy waters, rising towards the light. It’s a symbol of resilience, renewal, and spiritual awakening. Alison Lam often works with 108 lotuses which is a sacred number in Buddhism, tied to cycles of prayer and meditation.” Celina Loh of InTransit, curator of mind the gap.

*Alison Lam’s research explores ESEA women’s experience of neurodiversity in the home.

Tuesday 7th October, 7pm 

Join us for a special screening of The Truth About Gay Sex (2001), a bold, funny, and informative documentary by pioneering filmmaker Kristiene Clarke. Arriving nearly a decade after the VHS The Safer Sex Guide to Gay Sex, this part-primer, part-provocation dives into the realities of gay male sexuality with candid interviews, expert tips, and a rolling on-screen glossary. Filmed at iconic locations like Hoxton’s legendary leather shop Experience and various cruising spots of the era, the film captures a vivid snapshot of queer life at the turn of the millennium. 

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Kristiene Clarke — the first trans director in mainstream UK television — whose work has challenged norms and amplified LGBTQ+ voices for over three decades. Don’t miss this chance to revisit a landmark moment in queer broadcasting and reflect on what’s changed (and what hasn’t) since. 

This event is part of Undomesticated – Gender Defiance in the Home, a free screening series from TGirlsonFilm exploring queerness in the noughties through moving image works that defy gender norms and domestic expectations. Free entry – all are welcome.

This creative workshop is reserved for ESEA diaspora people.

“Scent arrives before language. 
A trace in the air. 
A whisper in the body. 
Something half-remembered, something never forgotten.” -- Duong 
  
Join resident artist Duong Thuy Nguyen in a participatory workshop that explores the intimate relationship between scent, memory, and ancestral presence - especially within diasporic experience. Rooted in the Vietnamese tradition of Trầm Hương - a sacred incense made from agarwood - this gathering invites participants to reflect on how scent can become an archive: of memories, of absence, of return.

Scent lingers in ways that stories do not. It slips past the mind and settles in the body. The scent of old wood, of altar smoke, of your grandmother’s coat. What does it mean to follow scent as a method for remembering? What histories surface when you breathe deeply, without rushing to explain? 
  
Through a series of guided activities - including scent-mapping, incense blending, and reflective writing or recording - you’ll be invited to engage your senses as tools for memory.  
 
Together, we will: 
Trace personal and collective memories through smell Blend our own incense as devotional offerings 
Record reflections and scent-memories for the Library of Ancestral Knowledge 
Explore the role of sensory experience in cultural continuity and healing 
  
Please note this is not a lecture or a performance. It is a space for slow, attentiveness. A room where the invisible becomes felt. Where fragments are enough. Where the smoke of one person’s memory might touch another’s. 
  
This workshop is especially for those who move between cultures, between geographies. For those who feel distant from their ancestors, but still light incense for them. For those who remember in pieces. For those who carry grief they cannot name, and joy they cannot place. 
  
Bring with you: 
A story, a photograph, an object, or simply a memory - intact or broken. 
We will bring scent, stillness, and space. 
  
Let us remember together. 
Not through the head, but through the breath. 
Not through explanation, but through presence.

This creative workshop is reserved for ESEA diaspora people.

This creative workshop explores growing as part of the Library of Ancestral Knowledge: how can gardening serve as an act of cultural preservation? Participants are invited to think or dream about recipes, herbal remedies, gardening tips, and stories. 

Join landscape architect and gardener Yoni Carnice for a hands-on workshop exploring how gardening can connect us to ancestral knowledge and cultural memory across Vietnamese and ESEA communities. Through paper collage, cooking, and practical gardening activities, we will collectively reflect on how nurturing the land helps preserve shared histories and traditions. 

Using archival imagery, heritage food crops, and recycled materials, participants will share personal memories of landscapes, gardens, and home. We will also learn practical techniques for growing Southeast Asian herbs and vegetables in our local London climate, exploring creative ways to adapt traditional growing practices to new environments. 
  
Whether you are an experienced gardener or just starting out, this workshop invites you to connect with family and diaspora memory through the simple act of gardening.  

**We use the term family broadly to include any form of family structure, including LGBTQIA+ families, chosen family, friends and allies.

This creative workshop is reserved for ESEA diaspora people.

This creative workshop explores making: How can we preserve our cultural heritage through making with our hands? Join Clai Mai/Mai Anh Le in exploring diaspora and family memory through the act of basketweaving and making a memento mobile with clay and recycled material. Vietnamese weaving has a rich history, deeply rooted in agricultural traditions. As we move through an ever evolving digital and technological world, where does this craft fit? Whose hands will continue this skill? 
 
In this workshop, we will activate this craft through a contemporary lens, using clay to basketweave from recycled and repurposed containers. Join artist (Clay Mai or Mai Anh Le? Totally up to you!) in this practical workshop where you will learn an introduction to this ancient craft and pick up new skills while engaging in the communal act of weaving with clay. 
 
You will learn about the cultural background and history of weaving and its practice in modern day society. Together, you will create clay woven containers to home old and new memories within. Let the intricate craft of weaving and working with clay take you on a journey of meditative making, reflection and conversation. 
 
How can we preserve memories of our cultural heritage through making with our hands? As we move through life we hold onto small items that hold memory and purpose, gradually adding to or disposing of as we move through time, space, and location. Drawing on diaspora stories of DIY spirit and resourcefulness, you will preserve the textures of your mementos and imprint them into clay, together creating a communal hanging mobile.

Join Ruth Guilding, author of The Bible of British Taste and creator of @bibleofbritishtaste, and author and designer Ben Pentreath (@benpentreath) for a discussion that interrogates the contemporary meanings of 'home' and our ongoing preoccupation with domestic taste, creativity, self-preservation, and decorating styles.

About the book:

Published on September 25th, Ruth Guilding's Bible of British Taste takes readers inside Britain's most fascinating homes - eclectic, charming, and unique. Rejecting the pristine and predictable in favour of the lived-in and characterful, Ruth Guilding celebrates interiors filled with art, antiques, and the layers of history laid down by successive generations of owners. As she describes it, ‘My mantra for the houses, gardens and people I’ve included in this book seems to be that old stuff is good - and perfection is boring. Joined by Ben Pentreath, who is himself featured in the book, this evening will shed new light on the quirky charm of British style and British Interiors, with a distinctive mix of house and garden, folk art narratives, domestic icons, and biography.

Join us for an afternoon in conversation with Henrietta Moore and Arthur Kay authors of the book Roadkill: Unveiling the True Cost of Our Toxic Relationship with Cars. They will discuss the philosophical implications of car culture, as well as the practical impacts it has on our money, taxes, neighborhood, planet, health, and our happiness.

The car has been marketed as a symbol of “freedom.” The authors convincingly argue that it has actually hemmed in our cities and incrementally restricted our choices. How can we break free from our toxic relationship with cars? 

The authors offer a new way of thinking that promises to multiply your choices, improve your city, and expand your freedoms. Roadkill is a persuasive and illuminating call to action for city dwellers, environmentalists, and policymakers — anyone interested in practical ways to improve your life and expand your freedoms.

Join us for an inspiring panel discussion, The Home Reimagined, hosted by interior stylist and author Nicole Gray.

Featuring a dynamic group of experts-Sophie van Winden, co-founder of sustainably-led interior design studio, OWL Design; Neil Dusheiko, architect and director of his eponymous studio; and Loma Marks, editor-in-chief of Reclaim Magazine-this conversation will delve into the evolving meaning of home.
 
Together, Nicole and the panellists will explore how our homes are shifting to meet the demands of modern life, blending authenticity, sustainability, and creative expression. Drawing from their professional insights and personal journeys, they will share ideas on crafting future-ready, meaningful living spaces that reflect who we are.