West Midlands & London | 2026 – 2027

Culture& presents The Unhomely, a new public programme and exhibition series taking place in Stoke-on-Trent and London. Working with the Brampton Museum  and Museum of the Home, these dual locations will create a conversation across cities, inviting audiences to reflect on the tensions of belonging and the persistence of memory, longing, and identity. Rooted in the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny, where the familiar suddenly feels strange, The Unhomely explores the diasporic experience of migration, cultural displacement, and unbelonging. Through stories, objects, and creative commissions, the programme asks: what does it mean to feel at home, and what happens when home becomes unhomely?

Each element of the programme will be shaped by lived experiences of people from Staffordshire and beyond: from domestic objects that carry memories across time and geography, to collective storytelling that reframe the archives of migration and belonging. Stay tuned for updates, on our social media channels, website and newsletter, as we announce artists, partners, and venues in the next few months.

Now On

13.30 – 15.30 Friday 16th October 2026

The Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme, ST5 0QP

Book Free Ticket 

Half-day Workshop with Güler Ates, all welcome, no previous experience in sound art is required. This workshop aims to bring together communities of North Staffordshire to explore how sound and music can hold memory, identity, and belonging. Through collaborative listening, storytelling, and creative sound-making, participants transform personal and collective experiences into shared narratives that honour the area’s cultural richness and histories of migration.

Artist and Facilitator: Güler Ates

Co-facilitator: Oghosa Ize-Iyamu

Photography: Timon BensonThe Brampton Museum, Brampton Park, Newcastle-under-Lyme, ST5 0QP13 September – 13 December 2026FREE ENTRYCurated by Kymara AkinpelumiCo-produced with North Staffordshire Community Oral History GroupFeaturing Güler Ates, Ayesha Sureya and University of Staffordshire BA (Hons) Fashion students: Helina Addae and Gregory Say

It is the in-between space that carries the burden of the meaning of culture… by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves

– Homi K Bhabha (The Location of Culture, 1994).The Unhomely is a public programme and exhibition series curated by Culture& in partnership with The Brampton Museum, Newcastle-under-Lyme, University of Staffordshire and Museum of the Home in London, exploring how histories of migration, displacement, belonging and identity shape our understandings of home. Rooted in psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny – also translated as the Unhomely – the project explores the lived experience of home and asks: what does it mean when the familiar becomes strange?We turned this question towards the local community, asking how people, or their families, came to live in Stoke-on-Trent and other parts of North Staffordshire. Through a series of oral histories, we began to trace the many routes that have brought people to the region, revealing the complexity of migration and the different ways in which home is made, carried and remembered.At the heart of the exhibition are the tapestries which transcribe these oral histories: sharing experiences of people moving in search of community and livelihood; stories of war and conflict that have caused displacement; and legacies that have been carried through migration and have become a part of the cultural fabric of a new home. The large-scale textiles composed of words, phrases, and excerpts are drawn directly from the recorded conversations shared by participants, transforming spoken testimony of lived experience represented by a physical object that visitors can pause with, read closely, to which they can return throughout their journey.Event Archive

Past Events

London | In Perpetuum – Culture& X Museum of the HomeA site-responsive soundscape from artist Güler Ates, in collaboration with Leyla Huysal and Yusuf Huysal. In Perpetuum is a four‑channel sound piece with no beginning or end. It invites visitors to slow down and inhabit the space, guided by the themes of ambiguity, the unknown, and belonging, amidst the Museum’s period rooms. Each time someone listens, the experience is different. As distinct elements loop across four channels at varying durations, the sound piece creates moments that have never sounded quite the same and never will again.Tuesday 17 March 2026 – Sunday 30 August 2026Museum of the Home, 136 Kingsland Rd, London E2 8EA

The Unhomely: Double-bill Screening & Panel Event

Photo credit: Juliet Gyan and David Adebiyi

The event involved the screening of You Hide Me (Nii Kwate Owoo, 1970, 17min) & Dahomey (Mati Diop, 2024, 68min), a panel discussion with Dr Errol Francis, Gabriella Gay and Jessica Longmore, and Q&A.

Culture& would like to thank everyone that joined us on 11 March at the Double-bill film screening at University of Staffordshire that kicked off our Unhomely programme that explores diaspora, migration and belonging. Special thanks to Jessica Longmore and Gabriella Gay from Kwanzaa Collective for making this event possible. Students, alumni and staff of University of Staffordshire and Keele University watched ‘You Hide Me’ by Nii Kwate Owoo, 1970, and ‘Dahomey’ by Mati Diop, 2024 – two documentaries on the appropriation and repatriation of African art and artefacts.
Student Response from the Event

The panel discussion after the screening comprised of Dr Errol Francis, Culture&’s Artistic Director Gabriella Gay , Director of Kwanzaa Collective UK and Jessica Longmore, Senior Lecturer Digital, Tech, Innovation & Business at University of Staffordshire. The discussion was then opened up to the audiences, who shared their unique insights on their experiences of feeling at home or not at home, as well as their relationship to Staffordshire. A short video recap of the discussion will be shared soon. We would like to invite all students to submit a creative response or written review of the documentaries, link in bio. Photographer and Graphic Designer of ‘The Unhomely’ logo: Juliet Gyan. Roving mic/facilitator: David Adebiyi

In Conversation Event at Museum of the Home

Culture& would like to thank everyone who came to the In Conversation event at Museum of the Home.

The audiences joined Dr Errol Francis, Director of Culture& in conversation with artists Güler Ates, Leyla Huysal and Yusuf Huysal, facilitated by Museum of the Home curator Marina Maniadaki, to explore the new sound work ‘In Perpetuum’ installed amongst the period rooms at the Museum of the Home. The event began with a collective listening of the work, followed by a discussion exploring how this new commission engages with The Unhomely – a concept from Sigmund Freud’s 1919 essay das Unheimlich. Often translated as “the unhomely” or “the uncanny”, the idea describes the unsettling feeling of being alien or out of place within a familiar setting. The panel shared their insights around the concept and development of the sound installation ‘In Perpetuum’ and expanded on the tensions of belonging and the persistence of memory, longing, and identity.

Student Opportunity | Open Call: Responses to Documentary Screening

Culture& invites students who attended The Unhomely documentary screening on Wednesday 11 March 2026 at the University of Staffordshire Film Theatre to submit a visual interpretation and/or written review responding to the two films being screened. This call is open to students across Creative Industries disciplines at University of Staffordshire and Keele University. Two submissions will be selected. Each selected student will receive a £250 bursary. How to Apply: Culture& Unhomely screening review call out