News and Comment
Latest post: 17/3/22
Staying Home and Influencing London’s Recovery - The GLA’s London Community Story Project and plans for a future Insights Hub for London
In 2020, soon after London went into its first lockdown, communities, arts and cultural, and heritage organisations began projects…
09/02/22:
COVID-19 and the Politics of Home
The Prime Minister’s admission that gatherings were held at Downing Street during a national lockdown has not only triggered anger over politicians partying while the public were not allowed to meet family or friends, but also reveal how the home is at the heart of government…
My Place My Space
16/11/21
Stories have a somewhat paradoxical power: they can transport us into a new world and simultaneously make us reappraise our own reality with fresh eyes. In the last two years this quality has taken on a new importance…
Mapping Home: a child’s view on the pandemic
Watching children and young people create they own maps is a fascinating process. Often unencumbered by cartographic conventions, but with a strong sense of what they want to portray, their maps reveal new insights…
09/07/21
Mind Maps of the Pandemic
As part of their response to the COVID 19 pandemic, National Museums Liverpool, a partner on the Stay Home Stories project, launched an initiative “Covid 19 Mind Maps”, through which they invited members of the public to create a “mind map”.
05/07/21
The Stay Home Rapid Response Collection at the Museum of the Home
The Stay Home Collection is a digital collecting project that documents how people’s experiences of home life and home making have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its launch in April 2020, over 400 stories have been submitted, each reflecting on how the pandemic …
CALL FOR PAPERS AND CREATIVE RESPONSES
Dwelling and belonging in pandemic times
Researchers, artists, curators, community workers, faith leaders and others are invited to submit proposals for 20-minute papers on, and creative responses to, Home and COVID-19 for a two-day symposium at the Museum of the Home, London.
The world has now adopted a vicarage model of working
When the government told people to ‘stay home’ at the start of the first coronavirus lockdown it was easier for some to adapt their lives than for others. Anglican clergy formed one group who were already quite familiar with working from home. For many priests, the vicarage is the hub of both their personal and professional life…
Mobile Homes
‘Stay Home’ – it sounds so simple at first, such a clear message designed to keep people safe. We can, and have, unpicked so many issues hidden in this directive….
Together/apart: digital connections in pandemic times
How can mutual care, solidarity and belonging be practised and experienced through the ‘tiny windows’ of zoom? How can a relational sense of home that is created through sharing food and stories be transposed to digital platforms in pandemic times?
Mapping Home
For many of us we think of maps as directional or we think of ordnance survey maps. Perhaps for some of us our minds are drawn to the maps of imaginary worlds, such as Tolkien’s infamous hand drawn annotated map of Middle Earth…
Just Come and See Me
I am writing this blog as we finally have a ‘roadmap’ to lead us out of lockdown. I anticipated the government announcement with only one thing in my mind: ‘when can I see my son?’
Stay Home Stories
Welcome to the ‘Stay home stories’ website of the AHRC-funded project ‘“Stay home”: rethinking the domestic in the Covid-19 pandemic.’ I am writing this during the third national lockdown in the UK at a time of ongoing debate about when schools in England might re-open and other restrictions might lift…
Press release
Professors Alison Blunt and Alastair Owens from Queen Mary’s School of Geography have been awarded substantial funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on life at home. The grant is part of the UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to COVID-19.
From the Synagogue to the Sofa
As I write this I reflect on the past week as rabbi of a London community. My duties included officiating at a funeral, leading services for Jewish Mental Health Awareness Shabbat, teaching, tea and chat with congregants, pastoral support, and participating in an interfaith service to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD)…