We have the keys!
The new Museum of Homelessness site at Manor House Lodge – an update.
The day we got the keys!
After almost three years of negotiations, we have finally signed a ten year community lease agreement and have the keys to Manor House Lodge to make the world's first Museum of Homelessness site.
In this pic Matt and Jess, directors of MoH hold the keys to Manor House Lodge
Where we are now?
We are currently carrying out initial building works to the site, kindly funded by local trust CSDS. Our contractors, Hudson West should be finished by end of August 2023, when we will move in.
Rather than opening the museum to the public in 2023 as planned, our community and Board have agreed to dedicate the rest of this year to community focused activity and open Museum of Homelessness to the public in Spring 2024.
The lease negotiations took a lot longer than we planned. We want to give the time and space needed to settle into the site and ensure local people are involved in the museum’s development, especially people living in the park, and people who are homeless locally.
A google earth image of the Manor House Lodge site
Things are really hard at the moment. We are seeing a sharp increase in all kinds of homelessness, a reduction in people’s rights and so many people are struggling for the basics.
We want to create a culture on the site that is the opposite of what is happening in our political and economic systems. We want to be flexible, reciprocal, generous and compassionate. This can’t be done if people are under pressure. We want our new staff team and community members to have time to settle into role, settle into the building and enjoy the process.
Museum of Homelessness Community members
We also want the museum’s annual cycle to be in harmony with the seasonal rhythms of nature and we are exploring what that means for programming and other activity.
The grounds of Manor House Lodge in May 2023
So we plan to open the site to the public in Spring 2024, having spent the autumn and winter of 2023 settling in, running community events and activity, testing the site, providing resources and space to people experiencing homelessness and developing our creative work together.
What we’ve been up to in the meantime
Whilst working to secure the lease, we have been busy. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes to develop the project and plan. We are developing local partnerships and getting to know what is needed on the ground in Haringey, Hackney and Islington.
Hackney Playbus
We have recruited artist and long-standing collaborator Bekki Perriman to the team as community coordinator who is working with MoH creative associate Dani Vassall to develop creative activities for local families over the summer holidays with the lovely people at Hackney Playbus.
We’ve also been holding lots of community planning sessions to develop the new museum with the help of Stephen Greenberg, community members and our amazing artists in residence Surfing Sofas, Liv Wynter & Jacob V Joyce. We have also recently recruited Nathan East as Museum Manager and Harry Gay as Creative Projects Manager.
Community Meet and Dream session at Whitechapel Art Gallery
We are developing a unique survivor led trauma informed coaching programme to run out of the lodge funded by the Sarah Jane Leigh Charitable Trust. In 2023 we are upskilling 5 community members with 9 months of training to work as certified trauma informed coaches on the new site.
Overview of our Trauma Informed Coaching training
We are also working on wider plans for developing the grounds into a site of healing and recovery. This includes the trauma informed coaching, a music programme, yoga, an Open Studio and recruiting a community landscape gardener to develop the grounds with us. We are working with our friends at the People’s Recovery Project to design and pilot holistic recovery programmes in Manor House Lodge.
We are also in the process of writing a People’s History of Finsbury Park, funded by Historic England. Click here for more info and how to get involved with the People’s History project.
Oral histories sessions for Finsbury Park project in the Solidarity Hub
We are so grateful that excitement has been building and that we have a lot of support. We have been chosen as one of a handful of prestigious projects funded by CIRCE to model how culture can respond in a time of poly-crisis. We are always working to have an impact at policy level. Our campaigning around climate and homelessness, Severe Weather Emergency is influencing policy in London and nationally, as the first ever hot weather protocol for people experiencing homelessness is now in place since the report was published.
In January the Manor House Lodge project was featured in the Guardian pick of Art, Design and Architecture for 2023 and was named one of Time Out's top four cultural hotspots opening in 2023, alongside the V&A, Soho Theatre and the National Portrait Gallery.
We really appreciate the support and interest from our colleagues in the press and the flexibility of our funders including Arts Council England, Rede, The Linbury Trust, Oak Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, People’s Postcode Society as well as the others already mentioned in this newsletter.
We are also grateful for all our supporters and we hope that the site will be just as highly anticipated for 2024! We cannot wait to welcome you all next year.
In the meantime, there will be opportunities to stay in touch and get involved which we will share. Please stay tuned and thank you for being alongside us x
