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The West Indian Front Room

Text

Commentary

The West Indian Front Room exhibition, held between 18 October 2005 and 19 February 2006, was a collaboration between the Geffrye Museum and Michael McMillan.
McMillan is a British-born writer and artist of Vincentian parentage. Core themes in his work explore post-World War Two immigration and settlement, identities and gender, hidden histories and the family. The project at the Geffrye draws on his long engagement with the meanings about the West Indian front room and on his previous projects, including The Black Chair: An Installation and Exhibition Rediscovering the West Indian Front Room, shown at High Wycombe Museum (1998-9) and Slough Museum (2000), and The West Indian Front Room: A Performance Installation at The Albany, Deptford (2004).

The exhibition was described as follows on the Geffrye Museum website: 'An evocation of his (Michael McMillan's) childhood memory will be created for the exhibition, a front room of the 1960s and 1970s in which visitors will be encouraged to linger. This will be put into context by listening posts with brief excerpts from interviews carried out with first- and second-generation people of African-Caribbean descent and West Indian elders who shared their experiences of setting up home in Britain. Filmed interviews by Joel Karamath will run on two screens, and photographs of interiors from London's African-Caribbean and Black British communities will line the walls. In a separate seating area, visitors will be able to leave their own memories of their own homes.' (Geffrye Museum website, February 2006)

Names

McMillan, Michael

Date(s)

2006

Country

United Kingdom

Historical Region

Description

Format

Photograph

Type

Illustration

Genre

Interior View

Publication

Copyright

Photo © Geffrye Museum. Text excerpt from an essay by Michael McMillan produced to accompany 'The West Indian Front Room' exhibition at the Geffrye Museum.

Location

Record ID

ID1289