Who Stole My Milk? Exploring Student Homes - Ucl

[ Music ] >> We share our our milk. [Laughter] >>Well, you just have your skimmed milk >>Well everyone can have that. [Laughter] Its not skimmed actually; it's not skimmed milk yet no one seems to touch it . [Laughter] It tastes the same as 2% and its just 1%; its 1%. [Laughter] >> It is disgusting. [Laughter] [ Music ] >> For the past 3 years, students on the Museum and Site Interpretation course at the UCL Institute of Archaeology have collaborated on projects with the Geffrye Museum. The Geffrye is the Museum of the Home featuring a series of period rooms which display typical middle class interiors and gardens from the 17th century to the present day. >> This years project focused on student homes so we wanted to come away from stereotypes of student homes and look at the different multicultural influences that happen considering that many students in London come from all places around the world. >> To do that, we actually went into people's houses and asked them about what it was like to be a student in London and how it was to live in a student house. So we looked at the way that they spent time together; how they shared the household chores, like whether they cooked together. We also did things and we took photographs of everything. We made videos with the group interviews because we wanted to see how they were actually interacting with each other when they were together. >> But how about something like the kitchen paper or toilet paper? >> I think it's...just often it's just when it runs out. >> Yeah. Everybody buys ... >> Everybody buys it at the same time. [Laughter] >> ...when there's not any more. >> Yeah. >> Although you sometimes do online shopping. >> Yes and then I usually get lots of flat stuff - Like toilet paper, paper towels... >> So I'm usually the only one that buys paper towels actually. >> Yeah. >> Because we run out and then everyone starts using the toilet paper. [Laughter] [ Pause ] >> We ended up with 14 participations and we managed 4 houses overall, so kind of spread. And we also had a really interesting diverse group of people, so it was 9 different countries we ended up interviewing. >> The material that the documenting student homes team collected was then passed on to all the different teams. The exhibition team designed panels and text from the information that was found and the web resource team designed an interactive floor plan and a digital story. [ Pause ] >> We've been involved in every aspect of the project; the exhibition, the web resources. And I think it means I kind of understand how the museum is run much better. I understand everything that has to go into it. >> I thought that it was going to be more a collaboration among the students. I mean it happened to be a close collaboration with the museum so that changed everything and it made the experience much more rewarding. [ Pause ] >> The Geffrye has benefited in many ways from our collaboration with the Institute of Archaeology, particularly the student group. [ Pause ] As practitioners, we sometimes can lose touch with the latest theory and thinking about museum practice and so it really keeps us up-to-date and in touch with that. But also, the students bring a huge amount of manpower to the museum, so helping us plan exhibitions, do audience research, put on events. But also the energy, the enthusiasm, the ideas, and fresh perspective. [ Music ] >> Who stole my milk?