Museum of Homelessness announces opening programme for 2024
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Museum of Homelessness at dusk, photo by Lucinda MacPherson
We have confirmed opening dates and plans for the first show at our new site in Finsbury Park. How to Survive the Apocalypse: Wisdoms from our Community will take place on Fridays and Saturdays from 24th May to 30th November 2024.
The team moved onto the museum’s new site in October 2023 and it has been tightly guarded, with access restricted to the museum’s community of people experiencing homelessness. Now, our community is ready to open the doors of the world’s first Museum of Homelessness to the wider public and this inaugural season has been carefully designed to add something special to London’s cultural offerings.
Today we are able to share our plans to mark the opening of our new site and our ten-year anniversary. How to Survive the Apocalypse will be an immersive experience drawing on the museum’s front-line action over the course of a decade that has included record levels of homelessness, widening inequality, Brexit, a climate emergency, a pandemic, and a series of ongoing social and political crises.
No More Deaths on our Streets protest, 2019
About How to Survive the Apocalypse
This is a chance to learn from and listen to people with the skills and aptitude to deal with the collapses we are seeing. How to Survive the Apocalypse is about reframing the myths and stereotypes of homelessness and showing that the answers to some of our most pressing problems can often be found with the people at the sharp end of society. This show is underpinned by three basic principles:
1. Visitors should expect a break from the traditional museum experience. The new site is in a small gatekeeper’s cottage in London’s iconic Finsbury Park. We can accommodate 25 people a time, so expect a lively, conversational encounter which is about connection and solidarity.
2. Visitors should not expect to see labels. Through an approach that looks to smash the traditional model of glass cases and guarded access, we instead present our objects through a tour that includes performance, poetry, object handling, chats, and much more.
3. And finally, visitors should expect to have a better chance of surviving the apocalypse after a glimpse into our world. We can offer no guarantees, but in the words of one of the guides to our show: “Our solidarity is our most potent weapon.”
Solidarity signs inside the museum, photo Lucinda Macpherson
Museum Director Jess Turtle said:
“People who have been through a lot already – our community – are often the best people to respond in an emergency. The museum’s community-driven work in the last ten years has shown this over and over again. The answers don’t lie in Parliament, they lie here, with us, the people who come up with solutions on the ground and work together to get things done. It is this aspect of our culture that we want to share with our audience in How to Survive the Apocalypse and we can’t wait to welcome people into our world.”
Secret Museum 2021, photo Lucinda MacPherson
Practical Info
· The museum’s first open season will run May 24th to 30th November, 2024
· During the open season, How to Survive the Apocalypse will usually run two days per week - Fridays and Saturdays - with three shows a day*
· Full programme announcement, ticketing information, and time-slots will be shared later in the Spring of 2024. Please sign up to our mailing list to be kept up to date you can sign up here Newsletter — Museum of Homelessness
· MoH will also have a wider programme during the season. People can expect talks, workshops, and events throughout the open season.
· How to Survive the Apocalypse and some of the other public programme will be ticketed. The museum’s cast and crew are all paid at MoH’s flat pay rate which is the national average wage for museums (£34,800). Ticket income directly enables people with experience of homelessness to do meaningful, creative work. Any surplus will be put towards the museum’s Emergency Winter Fund which supplies tents, sleeping bags, socks, and other essentials throughout the colder months.
· However, no one will be turned away from an MoH event or show – there will always be at least 5 free places available for people who can’t afford to buy a ticket.
· MoH will not have general drop-in visiting hours for the wider public because the site is geared towards not only producing cultural content but also providing much needed resources and connection for the community.
· Throughout the week we also provide community focused art, gardening, community meals, sexual health drop-ins, legal rights clinics, trauma informed coaching, radical archiving, recovery groups, and much more.
Further information on the creative process.
MoH moved into the new building in Finsbury Park on 10th October, 2023. On 11th October the doors were opened to our community of people experiencing homelessness and hardship. Since October we have been doing the site up, much of it with our own hands. MoH’s community has led every design decision on the museum’s new site, from choice of flooring to transformative landscaping of the garden.
During this process, thinking about how we want to welcome visitors to the site, a collective vision for this show has emerged, one that aims to take the learnings of the last ten years, and is presented as an offering for a way forward in troubled times.
How to Survive the Apocalypse draws directly and indirectly on the talents and contributions of a wide range of people from across the UK. As well as our immediate community, the MoH crew has worked with keystone artists (Surfing Sofas, Jacob V Joyce, Benji Human, the Riot FM collective and gobscure) to develop intricately designed spaces for the show.
Creative development session with Jacob V Joyce and the MoH community
The show also draws upon the wisdom of our object collection, the first dedicated collection for homelessness in the world. Each of the objects includes an anonymous testimony that will be performed verbatim in the museum. Each staging of How to Survive the Apocalypse will include performances of our object stories from a talented cast of six actor-storytellers.
Lisa Ogun’ performing an object story from the museum’s collection, 2019
More about Museum of Homelessness
Museum of Homelessness (MoH) is an independent London based charity that has won multiple awards for both the artistic experiences it creates and the support it provides for people experiencing homelessness.
We carry out all the museum activities you might expect – collecting, research, exhibitions, events; but, also support people affected by homelessness through mutual aid, direct action, investigations, and campaigning.
We have been actively seeking a secure home for MoH since 2019, but were slowed in our progress towards this due to their emergency pandemic response. In 2023, after 3 years of discussion with Haringey Council, we signed a ten-year community lease on Manor House Lodge, a two-storey former gatekeeper’s cottage. We have undertaken significant renovation work on the building already, renewing a neglected community site with the support of national and local trust funders. Haringey residents, through CSDS Foundation and the Sarah Jane Leigh Charitable Trust have directly funded key elements such as a community kitchen and implementation of a community garden design.
The building and development project has occurred without the influence of an architect. Instead, MoH pooled the experience of its community to develop a vision for the site. The project has sought to answer many questions, such as how we’ll balance the need to be “on show” to the public whilst continuing the important work we have also done to try and change the realities on the ground for people affected by homelessness. The project has taken place with a ‘community first’ approach, subverting norms for museum capital developments.
MoH’s work is generously supported by Oak Foundation, The Linbury Trust, Historic England, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Arts Council England, Sarah Jane Leigh Charitable Trust, People’s Postcode Lottery, Rede, CSDS Foundation, and many generous individuals.
This project has been made possible by Haringey Council, who are the landowner for the museum’s new site in Finsbury Park.
We have press quality images available and co-directors Matt and Jess Turtle are available for interview. Please contact Adam R. Hemmings at adam@museumofhomelessness.org with your questions or requests.