Walthamstow's William Morris Gallery is preparing to open a major new exhibition that looks at how people across Britain have reimagined what home can be.
Earthly Paradise: Radical Living in the UK opens on Saturday 3 October and explores 200 years of homes, collectives and social movements that, in the gallery's words, "challenged mainstream ideas of class, gender, politics and belonging". It brings together painting, photography, sound, archival material and everyday domestic objects, focusing on individuals and groups who used their homes as places to experiment and live differently.
From Red House to Dial House
The first part of the show looks at figures including the Ladies of Llangollen, C R Ashbee, Oscar Wilde, Ethel Mairet and Lee Miller, and at how domestic spaces became places to question marriage, class, gender and spirituality.
Visitors will find spaces linked to William Morris's own Red House, alongside Charleston, Benton End, Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage and Dial House, the anarcho-pacifist open home founded by Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher of Crass.
Gallery director Hadrian Garrard noted that Morris himself lived unconventionally, including in an open marriage.
Housing activism, then and now
A second section moves from the post-war years to the present day, highlighting feminist and anti-racist housing activism. Photography by Martin Parr, Sunil Gupta and Smiler reflects changing attitudes after the 1980 Right to Buy scheme, while new work by Abel Holsborough and David Spero addresses the housing precarity many people face today.
Travelling beyond Walthamstow
The exhibition runs at the William Morris Gallery until 28 March 2027. It will then tour to Tŷ Pawb in Wrexham (April to September 2027), Blackwell, the Arts and Crafts house in Bowness-on-Windermere (October 2027 to February 2028), and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh (March to September 2028).
The tour is supported by Art Fund's £5.36m Going Places programme, with backing from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Julia Rausing Trust.
