Home

Our collection is centred around ‘home’; its different forms, hidden in plain sight and the journey we take through it.

I wake up in a place dipped in colour,
tucked between the oranges and reds
you can get lost in the beauty of it all
the same way I get lost in pages of my book
and if you judged my outside,
you would never believe I have such a loud inside

The day is long

And comfort doesn’t only just lie in my library of colour
but it sits in the pews, surrounded by tin
so we cup our hands in prayer
rocking back and forth,
like we are undulating through the seawater
to commemorate our cadet brothers,
that’s why we merge faith with brotherhood
because only God can help them now

But the day is long, so I pick up a friend

And she lives in a dot of speckled red
surrounded by the grey normalcy of life,
my friend is quite private. And so is her house.
Hidden, behind closed wooden doors.
But as soon as you step into the threshold of our neighbour
personalities seem to ooze out of the windows

The day is still long

So we stumble into the living room library,
our home away from home
an opportunity for me to get lost in the pages again
and I like that, I like how this place feels different
the community, culture and care painted on every surface
and graffitied on every wall

But I am kind of hungry now

So we travel on the copper tubes
to get to the yellow house,
I step inside someone’s prefrontal cortex
and try to navigate around their cerebellum
everywhere I look I feel like I decoding a puzzling
trying to solve the riddle of:
‘Until lemons are sweet’
We eat in the yellow kitchen
and I am feeling slightly frightened by all this colour

So we take a journey into the darkness
It’s rough. Like rocks at the bottom of the seabed
but instead, these rocks seem to arch around me,
and there is a certain comfort I feel the darkness,
the idea that I cannot be seen

It makes me question my importance
It makes me question my ikigai - my purpose
so I take a deep breath, and I swing slowly
but I want to be raw and exposed
like the steel and concrete,
because they don’t apologise for being so bold

And I have one friend that is so unapologetic,
She’s that girl, it’s Lexi.
she’s a unique friend, but the type you can rely on.
she is our safe haven, our community calling,
and our girl sandwiched between two neighbours,
so we call her home

But it’s been a long day

So instead of getting lost in my books to relax
I watch the rain fall.
I listen to it’s pitter-patter
behind a screen of glass where i feel safe
and I watch the ripples grow, and grow and grow
to the point, I feel like it has curved over the edge into my realm

But the moon is reaching its apex,
arching over for a yawn

And I am starting to doze off
In my cabin in the woods based in Clapham
the carved concrete has changed the level of the floor
so I begin to sink into bed, into my buried room, in my upside-down house

And I remember, just before I married my inner eyelids
the beauty I saw in my home today.

City Curator's

‘Home: Simple Faces, Complex Minds’ is part of the City Curator’s programme, which aims to amplify the voice of young people within the Open House Festival 2023. The project brings together 15 young people who will work and learn as festival curators, deciding on themes and areas of London they are interested in and want to celebrate. The Open House Festival 2023 is a two-week celebration of London’s homes, architecture and neighbourhoods. For 30 years, we have opened-up London’s best known buildings, as well as some of its best kept secrets, to a wider audience. The festival is a chance to share and champion what’s special to us for others to explore and learn from.