As director of the Museum of the Home, Sonia Solicari has managed its £18.1m renovation and spearheaded the institution’s transformation from a museum of domestic interiors to one that investigates the concept of home and belonging.
“The way that we approach ‘home’ is that it’s universally relevant but deeply personal,” Solicari told blooloop. “The idea is that there’s no one definition. Nor are we the place that would attempt to define what home is.
“But what we do as an organisation is to throw out some questions and provocations. These enable our visitors to understand what home might mean to them. It could be the bricks and mortar or it could be the objects. Or, it could equally be the relationships of the people with whom you live.
“It could mean the country that you’re in, and how welcome you feel there. We are here to encourage people to think about what home means to them, but not necessarily to provide the answers. I don’t think we ever could, and nor should we.”
One person who nominated Solicari said: “She has ensured that artists, community partners and all audiences see themselves reflected in the museum and that prescient issues such as food inequality, social isolation and the economics of housing are represented.”
Solicari joined the Museum of the Home, formerly known as the Geffrye Museum, in 2017. Before this, she was head of the Guildhall Art Gallery and London’s Roman Amphitheatre. She served at the Victoria & Albert Museum as the curator of glass and ceramics from 2006-2010, and as assistant curator of paintings (2002-2006). She is an author and lecturer on various facets of nineteenth-century design and art and contemporary collecting and curation.
Together with Alison Blunt, deputy vice principal for impact (culture, civic and community) and professor of geography at Queen Mary University of London, Solicari co-directs the Centre for Studies of Home. This is an interdisciplinary research hub between Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of the Home which seeks to “deepen and diversify understandings of home, for both academic and public audiences.”