day one at MoDA

I am now at home writing this blog feeling spaced out after a long day of driving, and the first day at the museum. Whats for Dinner is MoDA's new exhibition on eating habits over the past 50 yrs, so lots of people visited and spent time sitting with us. A group came from The Barnet League of Jewish Women and An Asian womens group from Barnet. One woman told us about her tragic experiences of house clearing for three members of her family. Another woman, became obsessed by cake stands after collecting a few for a birthday celebration; she now has seventy. I plan to visit her and her cake stands.

The space that we created was neither a workshop space or a structured event. More a spontaneous action in which individuals and groups partipated in rituals of tea drinking, speaking, writing and folding napkins.

I was interested to see how people hovered around the door to the studio, unsure whether to step over the threshold, but when they were invited in to sit and have tea or coffee this seemed to help them to inhabit the space. The ritual of making tea and sitting around a table created a holding space for interaction. We hardly ever sit round a table anymore.

Many filled a questionnaire around notions of the meaning of home. They were really interested in this and the long table with our display of collected china. I feel challenged by the sheer volume of work around food and domestic issues and how to find a way in that is from my own voice, I don't want to lose my focus and get pulled in a different direction from where I want to be, but where do I want to be?
I need to give myself time to feel my way into the space and the project.

The conservator showed me an arhive box of a series of at least nine laters of wallpaper taken from a wall going back to the 18th century layer upon layer upon layer........