The Front Room (Museum of the Home)

From June 2021 The Front Room became a permanent 1970s period room in the Rooms Through Time gallery at the Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum). It builds on the popularity of The West Indian Front Room, which was the museum’s most successful exhibition (2005-06). This was largely due to its cross-cultural appeal with British-Caribbean and other migrant and white working-class communities, and in response, the project has simply been called The Front Room.  

McMillan’s family lived temporarily in a council flat on De Beauvoir Estate, Hoxton during the 1970s, like many Black and White working-class families living in the areas of Shoreditch, Haggerston, Bethnal Green and Hackney that surround the museum. This is seen in the architectural design of The Front Room here that belongs to a fictional British-Caribbean family of this era, whose dynamic everyday lives is reflected the in shifting material culture of the installation.

The National Front was active in this part of East London, which has since been transformed through the social and ethnic cleansing of gentrification. The Front Room’s permanence at the Museum of the Home enables creating activities that unpack the question of legacy, belonging and the meaning of home in a post-pandemic with culturally diverse audiences. This is a long-term strategy towards decolonising the museum, which through The Front Room becoming part of its collection museum introduces new alternative forms of knowledge.