At the beginning of May I gave my first ‘public’ conference paper at the Home and art: creating, performing and researching home workshop organised by the School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London at the Geffrye Museum. It was an interesting, if slightly nerve wracking, day with some very interesting and engaging speakers. An overview of the workshop is available here: http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/news/2015/items/157607.html.
Back in the darker part of the year I posted an image of my contribution to Vanessa Marr’s ‘Duster Project’. https://catehursthouse.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/women-and-domesticity-whats-your-perspective-domestic-duster-project/.
As both Vanessa and I were speakers at the workshop I finally had a chance to meet her personally and, as she had brought them with her, a chance to see the dusters! This is a really interesting project and it was fascinating to ‘read’ others’ thoughts on housework and beyond. Vanessa’s blog accompanying the project can be found here: https://domesticdusters.wordpress.com/. Vanessa has also produced an online exhibition guide https://domesticdusters.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/pop-up-duster-exhibition-guide.pdf which enables the dusters to be seen in more detail and also contains the thoughts behind the individual contributions.