A box made by a member of the Giant Dolls’ house community. Credit: Dolls’ house Project.

An event produced in collaboration between SCAN, SBSBE*, the Giant Dolls’ House Project and Oxfam GB

An evening sharing stories contributed through the Giant Dolls’ House Project, stories of hope, community, and family told by Syrian playwright Anan Tello. Members of SCAN also made dolls’ houses reflecting on their Syrian heritage.

Follow this link to book your ticket to the event.

This event showcase the Giant Dolls’ House Together, We Care exhibition and the stories that created it. By asking refugee and non-refugee families to make a doll house that tells their stories of home, community and belonging, the project attempts to create solidarity and understanding across the political and socio-economic divide.

Make your contribution to the Giant Dolls’ house exhibition ahead of the event.

This event is part of Refugee Week and the London Festival of Architecture.

*SBSBE: Syrian British Society of the Built Environment

About the Giant Dolls’ House Project

The Giant Dolls’ House Project is an inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tive arts project. It engages local com­mu­ni­ties and rais­es aware­ness for home­less­ness and refugees. The aim of the project is to make peo­ple aware of the impor­tance of a home and com­mu­ni­ty for all and to cel­e­brate a unit­ed diversity.

Since its start in Octo­ber 2014 the project has been to Dubai, North Car­oli­na, Goa, Jor­dan, Bournemouth and has been part of the Lon­don Fes­ti­val of Archi­tec­ture for five con­sec­u­tive years. The instal­la­tions cre­at­ed can be used as con­ver­sa­tion pieces, to tell sto­ries, or just to look at. Each instal­la­tion is very depen­dent on the dif­fer­ent col­lab­o­ra­tors over the years and demon­strates the diver­si­ty of groups involved in the project. We found that the dolls’ house can be used to explore ideas of iden­ti­ty, both shared as well as per­son­al, and that the dolls’ house project is always a good reflec­tion of the dif­fer­ent peo­ple who have cre­at­ed it.

Fur­ther­more, the idea of ​‘just mak­ing’ has been a great suc­cess. What could be called casu­al craft; find­ing out by mak­ing, tin­ker­ing, using your hands and every­day mate­ri­als, has been an impor­tant theme in the dif­fer­ent instal­la­tions. Think­ing through craft and mak­ing has res­onat­ed with the wide range of par­tic­i­pants who have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the project.

The project is the ini­tia­tive of Cat­ja de Haas who has con­duct­ed research into minia­ture and the home as part of her PhD by design. The project is run as part of her archi­tec­tur­al practice.