Museum of the Home Ticket Portal

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 Ben Pentreath, interior and architectural designer and author of An English Vision (@benpentreath) for a discussion that interrogates the contemporary meanings of 'home' and our ongoing preoccupation with domestic taste as self-preservation, creativity 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, a friend and contributor to this book, this evening will shed new light on the quirky charm of British style and British Interiors, house and garden, domestic icons, and autobiography.