Petal Power ticket competition

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, (SD2750)

We are so excited about taking our exhibition 'Petal Power' to the Knitting & Stitching Show that we're giving away two free tickets.  The tickets are valid for entry to the show on Saturday 8th October, and are worth £12 each.

All you need to do is answer this simple question:

The Knitting & Stitching Show is held at which prestigious venue:
a) Alexandra Palace   b) Buckingham Palace   c) Caesar's Palace

Please email your answer to moda@mdx.ac.uk, with 'Petal Power competition' in the subject line.  Please also include your full name in the email.

Entries must be received before midnight on Sunday 11th September 2011

Good luck!

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Interview with Zoë Brealey, Assistant Curator
Zoë has been responsible for making sure MoDA’s collections are moved to our new location, and that we don’t lose anything on the way. Here we ask Zoë about her job:

Q: How long has it taken you to prepare for this move?

A: We’ve been planning for this move for over a year. Getting ready to move the collections was a bit like an enormous 3D puzzle. The museum holds lots of objects of various sizes, ranging from small pamphlets, books and journals; to thousands and thousands of flat objects such as designs and wallpapers; and over two hundred large textiles on rolls. Part of the process has involved ensuring that everything is boxed appropriately so that it will not be damaged during the move, and also that things will be accessible to students and researchers in the long run.

At the same time, the shelving in the new location will not be the same configuration as our current shelving. I measured everything several times to ensure that it would all fit into the new store. Some objects had to be re-boxed and moved around within the store to make sure the collections fit into the newly configured space, and to ensure the best possible use of space.

I also had to label everything and make sure things were in the right places before the move, so that the removal men can put them in the correct locations at the other end!

Q: It sounds like a massive task - have you enjoyed it?
A: It has been great experience, and although it has sometimes been exhausting it's also been very satisfying to see our plans coming together.  It will be good to see all the boxes in their new locations soon, and for students and members of the public to be able to use them again. 

I'm always impressed and amazed by the imaginative ways in which creative people use MoDA's collections for inspiration.  One of these was Felicity Ford, a sound artist, who used wallpapers to inspire her explorations of the Domestic Soundscape.

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture SC57-63

We enjoyed working with Felicity during this project, and we're looking forward to extending the Sonic Wallpapers idea into an exhibition over the coming year.  Watch this space!

Put the kids in the car, we're off to the seaside!

It's summertime, so our thoughts are turning to holidays, car journeys to the coast, ice-cream and buckets and spades.

The particular Britishness of this kind of holiday was explored by David Heathcote in an exhibition at MoDA in 2008.  His book A Shell Eye on England was recently published by Libri, and it's recommended reading whether you are holidaying at home or abroad this year.

The book explores the creative forces that created the Shell County Guides. It considers their widespread cultural influence on our shared understanding of Britain and British-ness.


Guides are the most apparently ordinary kind of books, but David draws attention to the way that from the 1930s to the 1980s, the Shell Guides brought together the best of and most innovative writing, imagery and design.


In the 1930s, the editor of the guides, John Betjeman, gathered together a mixture of young artists and authors like Paul and John Nash, Robert Byron and John Piper. These artists represented some of the best of British creative talent of the mid twentieth century.

David's research for the book and exhibition drew on MoDA's JMRichards collection and those of the Shell Art Collection at Beaulieu.   The book is a great read, both for those interested in a ‘nostalgic’  view of Britain,  and for people with an interest in John Betjeman and John Piper, cultural history, design, photography and landscape.