Co-founder Matt Turtle reflects on the area’s radical history, and why it’s the perfect place to lay down roots By Matt Turtle
Manor House Lodge, the new site for the Museum of Homelessness. Credit: Museum of Homelessness
In late September, after seven years of searching, the Museum of Homelessness announced that it finally had a place to set down roots. We are delighted to make a base and a home in Finsbury Park in 2023.
First of all, the basics. We are a charity which carries out direct work with people affected by homelessness and we were founded and are led by people with direct experiences of homelessness. We are small, grassroots and produce creative work. But we also carry out mutual aid style work and campaigning with people in our community. Some readers who follow us will not be too surprised by our recent announcement. We have worked in North London for several years now and so making a home here is the logical conclusion of many years of searching for a space of our own in the area. This will allow us to continue our work with grassroots organisations such as Haringey Migrant Support, Streets Kitchen and the Outside Project, as well as the local authority and residents.
The park is a precious setting for us. This amazing green space, bordering three boroughs, contains within it a small underused park lodge that has fallen into disrepair. Next to the lodge is Woodberry Down, one of the great post-war social housing projects now being swept away by London’s all too familiar gentrification. The area’s history is tied to the ideas of thinkers, dreamers and doers of all stripes; Black community organisers such as Haringey Vanguard, the suffragettes, the anti-fascists and the punks – Johnny Rotten was literally born around the corner. We hope to add to this great tradition of grassroots action and after nearly two years of discussion with Haringey Council, we will be moving in to nurture, restore and make proper use of this historic building that dates back to when the park first opened in 1869.
People who read this may wonder what on earth to expect at our museum. The lodge itself is small, without much display space or room for grand exhibitions. That suits us just fine. For the best part of a decade, we have creatively adapted to different spaces and places be they hostels, the street, libraries, old fire stations or some of the biggest galleries in the UK. Our most recent immersive exhibition, Secret Museum, won ‘Temporary Exhibition of the Year’ at the Museum and Heritage Awards. Our way of working is more immediate and live than a traditional museum and this ref lects wider feelings about homelessness in society. It isn’t something people sit back and contemplate; it is something that evokes strong feelings and a desire for action, and rightly so. Coming to the Museum of Homelessness will be an invitation to step into our world – one of connection, sharing and learning through doing. People can expect live object stories rather than artefacts behind glass; conversations rather than labels and actions for the future rather than being fully focused on the past.
Ultimately though, we will be guided by people who are experiencing homelessness and poverty in what we do. During the pandemic we created a mutual aid style operation across North London. When lockdown first hit, the food supply chain collapsed and there was a need to respond. Readers may well have seen me cycling with a food trailer attached to my bike around Stamford Hill and Green Lanes. During lockdown one, we got nearly 10,000 food packages out to the streets and into emergency accommodation.
Why do we work this way? Well, we are a museum created in the wake of the financial crash, a museum with survivors of trauma and homelessness calling the shots, set up in an age of austerity that has hardly abated in the last few years. We don’t, and never have, accepted the standard script for museums as they should be done or as some people might expect. And we are not alone; museums like ours are increasingly common and have a new way of doing things – one that is socially engaged, transparent and sees its remit expanding way beyond simply putting pictures on walls and holding talks. As we develop our award-winning work in Finsbury Park, we look forward to meeting more local people and continuing the proud tradition of strong community work in the borough.
The Museum of Homelessness is due to open in spring 2023.
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Manor House Lodge, the new site for the Museum of Homelessness. Credit: Museum of
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