The Front Room: Diaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the Home

The Front Room: Diaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the Home, originally published in 2009, has become a beloved and much-praised source, providing fascinating revelations into the post-war British experience of immigrants, the decoration of their living spaces, and their position in society in relation to decolonisation. The 'front room' (emanating from the Victorian parlour) provides an outlet to respond to the feelings of displacement, exile, and alienation, and the rebuilding of a home in a strange land. Primarily concerned with Caribbean homes, The Front Room also looks at Moroccan, Surinamese, Antillean, and Indonesian migrant groups in Holland--encompassing, through texts, archival documents, and artistic photographs, the important cultural markers that are expressed through the domestic interiors of migrants. The author examines how this intimate space within the home raises issues of class, race, migration, aspiration, religion, family, gender, identity, and alienation. He also looks at the transition from the colonial post-colonial modernity by placing the book in the context of his own family's migrant experience.

Author: Michael McMillan
Publisher: Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd
Published: 07/31/2023
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.92lbs
Size: 10.99h x 9.18w x 0.58d
ISBN13: 9781848225930
ISBN10: 1848225938
BISAC Categories:
- Architecture | Buildings | Residential
- History | Social History

About the Author
Michael McMillan is a writer, playwright, artist/curator, and scholar of Vincentian parentage. He guest curated the critically acclaimed The West Indian Front Room exhibition at the Geffrye Museum (2005-06), which was also iterated in Tate Britain's Life Between Islands (2021-22) and is now a permanent 1970s period room at the Museum of the Home (formerly the Geffrye Museum). He was also chief consultant on the popular BBC4 documentary Tales from the Front Room (2007). He has written books, plays, and articles on arts and culture, and teaches at the University of the Arts London.