Sonic Wallpapers: Decorating with Sound

What would it be like if we could decorate our walls with sound?  Listen to sonic artist Felicity Ford talking about her new project Sonic Wallpaper, which looks at wallpapers from MoDA's collections.

Wallpaper, Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, photographed by Felicity Ford

New: magazines, journals, and ephemera collections ready to go online

We're working hard to get ready for the launch of our new online collections database. It's all part of our move towards the new, re-launched MoDA: Online, On Tour, and On Request.

We're excited to announce that when MoDA's new website launches, it won't only look better and be much easier to use, but it will show off more than ever from our collection. We're in the process of adding our magazines, journals and ephemera to our database, meaning you'll be able to see them alongside everything else, and making them far more accessible. (Previously information about these collections was only held in separate text documents making it difficult to find and use the information). Highlights from each collection have been photographed so a limited number of images will be available too.

Magazines & Journals Collection

We have around 150 different titles in our Magazines and Journals collection, covering subjects such as homes and interiors, gardening, home crafts, architecture, and much more.

We have particularly good holdings of homes and interiors magazines including Good Housekeeping and Homes & Gardens, with copies dating as far back as the 1920s and as recent as the 1980s.

Charles Hasler Ephemera Collection

Charles Hasler was a graphic design with a strong interest in typography. MoDA holds his archive of collected ephemera and magazines relating to graphic design, typography and more.

Shelf Appeal was a magazine launched in the 1930s and aimed at the newly emerging professional designers of packaging and promotional material.

Hasler was particularly interested in the design of sheet music and we have various examples of beautifully produced scores.

We think these are a great visual resource for research or inspiration; please do get in touch if you'd like to see more!  

Introducing "Sonic Wallpaper"

This winter artist Felicity Ford will be drawing on the MoDA wallpaper collection for inspiration for a new project. Sonic Wallpaper explores wallpaper from auditory and social perspectives, asking what would it be like if we decorated our homes with sounds?

Wallpaper, Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, photographed by Felicity Ford

Felicity brings a refreshing new perspective by thinking about the sounds suggested or auditory memories prompted by something as familiar as wallpaper.  We've commissioned her to take a look at a selection of wallpapers from our collections, and she'll be creating sound pieces to accompany some of them.

Wallpaper, Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, photographed by Felicity Ford

Felicity's experimenting with a website called Pinterest which lets you collect images that inspire you on to a virtual pinboard.  And she'll be making use of Audioboo and Twitter to share her ideas and gather your responses.  Watch (or listen to) this space for more details as the project develops.

MoDA: On Tour and On Request

The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture relaunched this year with a new strapline: "Online, On Tour and On Request".

Our new website (the "Online" bit) will be ready by the end of this month, but in the meantime we've been busy with the "On Tour" part.  We spent an amazing weekend at the Knitting and Stitching Show with our exhibition, Petal Power.  The positive response from visitors was almost overwhelming - so many of you were really interested and enjoyed our bit of the show enormously.  In fact, lots of people said Petal Power was the highlight of the whole thing!

If you were there we'd love to hear what you thought!  A book to accompany the exhibition will be published in the next few weeks - watch this space for more details.

Petal Power will shortly be touring to other museums around the country.  If you are interested in hiring Petal Power for your venue please contact Sara at Expositionis in the first instance.

Meanwhile, the signage on our new premises was also installed last week, and we're really pleased with it.  It's the final piece in the jigsaw: "On Request" means that we are now ready to welcome visitors, students and researchers to use the collections by appointment.  If you would like to make an appointment please email Maggie Wood (m.wood@mdx.ac.uk) to discuss your requirements.

It was great to meet so many interesting and enthusiastic people at Alexandra Palace, and we look forward to seeing many of you again in future.

MoDA's Award Winner goes global

Kerry Howley, winner of MoDA's Arthur Silver Award 2011, continues to enjoy considerable success with her amazing jewellery series of necklaces made from recycled human hair.































Kerry was awarded a first class honours degree in BA. Jewellery by Middlesex University this summer. In June her necklaces were featured in an article in the Daily Telegraph. This and other press coverage helped contribute to a massive interest in Kerry's work resulting in 1.75 million 'hits' on her website a month after its launch. Her jewellery was spotted by Sagmeister, a New York design company, who commissioned Kerry to design a poster for an exhibition to be shown at the Louvre in Paris from October. Kerry was also chosen by Craft magazine as one of their six favourite graduates of the year with an article due to feature in their September/October edition.

Kerry's success story continues. One of her pieces is currently in New York being filmed for a programme on the Discovery channel. Her other pieces were recently on show at the National Centre for Craft & Design in Sleaford. She is currently awaiting confirmation from the Museum of Art & Design in New York that they are going to show her work as part of an exhibition that is due to run from January - May 2012.

'It has been so overwhelming', commented Kerry. 'I would like to take some time to think about what I want to do next.

At MoDA we felt privileged that Kerry was able to spare some time in her busy schedule to drop into the new MoDA Collections Centre this week. Furthermore she has provided us with her necklaces so that we can show them as part of a display of the Arthur Silver Award 2011 in the Sheppard Library located on the Hendon campus of Middlesex University. The display will run throughout the month of October.

'The collections at MoDA were so inspirational in the design of the necklaces', Kerry commented. 'The first time around I only touched the tip of the iceberg - there is still so much more to see!'

Kerry has already made an appointment for another visit to MoDA for next month. I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next!