The idea for this project came from a research visit to The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture which is at the Middlesex University Campus in Hendon, London. They have a vast and beautiful archive of wallpapers, textiles, paper ephemera and suchlike themed around the home from the early to mid 20th Century.
There were some beautiful pictures of ships in the archive, along with a selection of calamitous (and somewhat hilarious) Victorian Postcards (see below). I wanted to capture that feeling but contrast it with something more mundane – hence the tea towel featuring an impending shipwreck.
There was something else I wanted to convey though, the act of washing up with someone can become the scene of some rather intimate conversations. Maybe that’s because it’s a task you do side by side rather than face to face. I wanted to nod towards that but also to acknowledge that the domestic environment can be the scene of high drama and everyday solutions. Sometimes a tea towel can solve a shipwreck of a problem.
The idea for this project came from a research visit to The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture which is at the Middlesex University Campus in Hendon, London. They have a vast and beautiful archive of wallpapers, textiles, paper ephemera and suchlike themed around the home from the early to mid 20th Century.
There were some beautiful pictures of ships in the archive, along with a selection of calamitous (and somewhat hilarious) Victorian Postcards (see below). I wanted to capture that feeling but contrast it with something more mundane – hence the tea towel featuring an impending shipwreck.
There was something else I wanted to convey though, the act of washing up with someone can become the scene of some rather intimate conversations. Maybe that’s because it’s a task you do side by side rather than face to face. I wanted to nod towards that but also to acknowledge that the domestic environment can be the scene of high drama and everyday solutions. Sometimes a tea towel can solve a shipwreck of a problem.
And now, calamitous and moralising postcards as promised.
(click to enlarge)
Jessica Scott 