About the event
Led by Dr Karen Schucan Bird (UCL), artists Jonathan Hogg and Andy D’Cruz (Output Arts), alongside survivors of domestic abuse, Time for Tea is an innovative project that blends art, research, and survivor experience to generate messages about how to support those experiencing domestic abuse.
The project mimics domestic settings through a series of interactive art installations in public spaces, centred on the theme of “meeting up for a cup of tea and a biscuit” with friends and family. By creating safe spaces that are conducive to conversation, the group aims to raise awareness and improve responses to abuse.
As part of our Home Truths series, this interactive panel invites you to share a cup of tea and a biscuit with us, and each other.
Explore collaborative practices at the intersections of research and art, as well as methods for engaging the public with challenging subjects. Learn about the unexpected benefits of art-making processes and how these can be the perfect medium for unwrapping otherwise difficult topics.
Each attendee will receive a copy of the limited-edition Time for Tea zine.
Programme
- Part 1: Art workshop: a guided drawing activity, using templates and carbon paper, whilst sharing tea and biscuits.
- Part 2: Panel discussion focusing on the collaborative journey of the “Time for Tea” project, from the perspective of the academic, the artist and the survivor.
- Part 3: Audience interaction and sharing of the project’s outcomes.
The next two Home Truths for our June and July programme are dedicated to an appreciation of art and music. How they can be used as mediums to engage in difficult conversations and topics that we naturally avoid or find uncomfortable.
About

Andy D'Cruz
He produces paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture as part of his core practice, and exhibits nationally and internationally. He is also engaged in producing large scale public sculpted and themed environments. He has a socially engaged practice working sensitively in education and with vulnerable community groups.

Jonathan Hogg
Their work includes audio-visual installations, light artworks, immersive interactive projections and live visuals, including performances at the Southbank Centre and Royal Albert Hall. Jonathan’s visuals emerge through a process of experimentation and chance, drawing on their experiences of neurodiversity, and combine light and movement to mesmerising effect.

Output Arts
They combine backgrounds in Fine Art and Technology, with years of experience in teaching. Their works span large-scale light installations, outdoor parades, immersive environmental pieces and sensitive community-led audio artworks.

Karen Schucan Bird
As an Associate Professor of Social and Political Science at University College London, Karen addresses real-world issues through collaborative research. Her current work focus on whole-systems responses to domestic abuse and art-based approaches to improving community responses to abuse. These projects involve partnership working with victim-survivors of domestic abuse, artists, and domestic abuse organisations including SafeLives and Solace Women’s Aid. Karen’s work has been published in world-leading academic journals, such as Trauma, Violence and Abuse and Journal of Family Violence, and featured in news outlets from The Conversation to the Daily Mirror.

Gaynor Tutani
She integrates her passions for arts, culture, community and education into exhibitions, events and art commentary. Her speciality is in public programming – hosting live performances, talks, interviews and poetry programs of which she extends as part of her practice as the Creative Programming Officer at Museum of the Home. Working across the Creative Programmes and Collections & Curatorial team, as well as the Commercial division, her role centres on aligning the Museum’s programming within the core values and vision of engaging with the museum communities through fundraising and programming that interrogates critical societal issues via an artistic lens. She co-founded EARTHworks[artists], a curatorial duo focused on fostering intergenerational creative collaborations. Gaynor holds a BA in History and the History of Ideas and an MA in Museum Cultures with Curating, specialising in decolonial approaches.