At Home consists of four films which each explore a key theme of domesticity: shelter, identities, well-being and connectivity. Created by the artists, designers and researchers Martha Rosler, Noam Toran, Superflux, and Simone Niquille between between 1989 and 2021, the films offer a critical reflection on the values and meanings of the home in the past, present and future.
The exhibition is the next step in an ongoing research project by Penny Sparke, Jana Scholze and Cat Rossi, three members of Kingston University’s Modern Interiors Research Centre. It originated as At Home: Panorama de nos vies domestiques, an exhibition curated for the 12th Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne (April to July 2022). Countering more widespread presentations of domesticity focused on consumerist visions or technological utopias, At Home instead addresses experiences of living in and creating a home, wherein exhibition visitors are as much the experts as the curators.
In particular, the films articulate growing concerns with the climate emergency, widespread inequality, the erosion of the boundary between the private and public self, and technological advances, and how these are affecting the domestic sphere. Conceived before Covid-19, researched during it, and exhibited in its aftermath, At Home also includes a reflection on the changing meaning of the home in light of the pandemic.
The exhibition invites all visitors – neighbours, artists, designers, architects, policy makers, students and staff – to join the curators in continuing their At Home research. Through the exhibition and accompanying programme it will explore ideas of shelter, identities, well-being and connectivity as core values of domestic life for humans and non-humans alike. At Home is also an opportunity to reflect on using exhibitions as research tools and what it means to bring an exhibition from one site to another.
Exhibition design by Plaid
Curated by Penny Sparke, Jana Scholze and Cat Rossi
Originally commissioned by Cité du Design and Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2022
The Films:
Shelter: Martha Rosler, Housing is a Human Right, 1989/2017
Identities: Noam Toran, Desire Management, 2005
Wellbeing: Superflux, Mitigation of Shock, Singapore, 2019
Connectivity: Simone C Niquille/Technoflesh, Homeschool, 2019
