Down the Back of the Sofa at The Vintage Festival
Storytelling workshop in the lounge at the Derby Silk Mill
Derby Museums worked on an exciting project with Charity Shop DJ and other cultural organisations from Derbyshire to take a bit of the County to London. As part of the Vintage Festival 2011 at the end of July the Museum created an amazing space.
Down the Back of the Sofa was place for re-discovering the things which make us what we are. For finding the stuff which is often lost, sometimes forgotten – but always welcomed back.
Down the Back of the Sofa is a special place in our memories. It was created in the Royal Festival Hall, using museum artefacts, charity shop treasures and a little bit of mischief.
Featuring a specially built set from our inglorious domestic pasts; a line-up of surprise guest DJs; Shakespearean Insult Swingball with 1623 Theatre Company; Charity Shop DJ’s Unlucky Dip; Maison Foo’s Memory Gathering Librarians; comics under the bed, and the legendary Choose Your Cheese club nights.
Record players and radios; gramophones and ghetto blasters; nests of tables, chests of drawers, Smash Hits and broken Action Men. As you explore under the bed, on top of the wardrobe, in the far corner of a drawer, you might just find a little bit of your own past, hidden in the recesses of your memory.
The set was constructed the set in the Silk Mill in July and has moved back there when it returned from London, so check out when the Silk Mill is open for your chance to see it.
Click the links to see us featured in the Guardian and Design Week!
Click here to download the project evaluation report - much more interesting than it sounds! (The file will download to your computer and is 3mb in size)
This project is supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Effective Collections Programme.
