When: Friday, April 9, 2021, 6:00 PM - 7:30 PMWhere: Online
What are the histories of tidying up? What are the geographies of household rituals? How do students navigate their first experiences of doing housework in their own flats? What if brooms had a mind of their own? And how can being housebound set us free?
This conversation investigates the histories, rituals and art of housework.
We celebrate the commissioned conversation between Stacy Makishi, a performance artist who offers audiences transformational and sacred rituals using the most mundane household objects, and Dr Rhodri Hayward (QMUL Reader in History) who writes on the histories of magic and tidying up. They are joined by a member of QMUL’s Residential Cleaning team, and by Dr Laura Humphreys, Curatorial & Collections Engagement Project Manager at the Science Museum, and author of the forthcoming Globalising Housework: Domestic Labour in Middle-class London Homes,1850-1914.
The panel will think about the histories, geographies and practices of household rituals and the conversation will be followed by a twenty-minute household ritual performed by Stacy Makishi, which will prepare us for the week of conversations to come.
But First... Some Housekeeping: A Conversation on Housework and Magic is part of Queen Mary Conversations Week, 9-16 April 2021
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