List members may be interested in a new exhibition now open at Kingston Museum entitled 'The Street Museum'. Please see below for details on this display, where the history of the street and it's residents is linked to those who live there today. If anyone is interested in the concepts behind this exhibition and would like to investigate doing something similar in their local community, please contact Robin Hutchinson at [log in to unmask]



THE STREET MUSEUM
 
The lives of people living on Cleaveland Road, Surbiton, told through the stories of the possessions they love
 
The Street Museum is a new exhibition at Kingston Museum telling stories about the lives of local people and the things they treasure. People living on Cleaveland Road in Surbiton have been recording the ‘story’ of a treasured possession - anything from a photograph to a teacup, Ugandan place mats to a stuffed polar bear. The crucial thing has been that that the object is important to them, and vital to their sense of self and place.
 
Along with the residents of Cleaveland Road itself, The Community Brain has been working with Kingston Museum, Kingston Council, postgraduate students from the Museums and Galleries Department of Kingston University, local schools and volunteers from across the Surbiton community. The exhibition presents the results of all this work: a street of life stories, told through heritage - a street museum.
 
The exhibition also reveals the richly varied heritage present in Cleaveland Road, an under-recognised and little celebrated pocket of historical interest - a mix of Victorian terraces, semi- and detached housing that have formed part of a Local Area of Special Character since 1989, but have never been fully investigated.  For the first time, the lives of those that have lived there in the past will be linked to those that live there now.
 
The Community Brain, a non profit-making community interest organisation, works with local people on projects that build knowledge of their local area, and the community that lives around them. 

Students from Kingston University's Museum and Gallery studies MA course worked with The Community Brain and residents from Cleaveland Road to help interpret either personal objects owned by residents or objects and items found on the street.

The students were asked to critically engage with objects collected and the stories associated with them.  They curated and re-imagined interpretations of the objects using a wide range of techniques such as investigating the history of the type of object, oral history interviews with the residents and investigating personal connections and wider themes relating to local history, community, space and place.

Objects that were contributed by residents ranged from the immediately local such as a photograph believed to be of VE celebrations on the street in 1945, to far-travelled objects such as an Argentinean rug and Ugandan place mats.  Objects donated raised as many questions as answers such as why a teddy bear is an enduring object loved by so many and why older forms of household help such as Pulley maids and re-usable nappies are coming back into fashion.

Objects that exist on the street provided a fascinating insight into the social, cultural and economic history of the street, Surbiton and the suburbs in general.  The students became absorbed in historical research around topics such as the love / hate relationship that exists between the suburbs and the Hydrangea and theoretical ponderings like trying to tell the sense of community on a street simply by looking at its front doors.
 

20 November – 16 January 2016
Opening hours: Tuesday, Friday, Saturday 10am-5pm, Thursday 10am-7pm
Admission free
 
Kingston Museum
Wheatfield Way
Kingston upon Thames, KT1 2PS
020 8547 5006
www.kingston.gov.uk/museum

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