Museum of Homelessness exhibition traces criminalisation of homelessness to 1600s land enclosures

A new exhibition at the Museum of Homelessness in London, titled 'Criminal: The Untold History of Homelessness' (until 25 July), traces the criminalisation of homelessness back to the early 1600s, which researchers call the 'Homelessness Big Bang'. This period saw land enclosures, economic shifts, and early colonial expansion fundamentally change society's treatment of unhoused people. The exhibition is staged in an English perennial meadow at the museum's site in Finsbury Park. It features works by anonymous graffiti artist 10 Foot, designer Matt Bonner, and poet/performance artist Gemma Lees. 10 Foot's first sculpture, 'Fairie Newbuild', is a skip-shaped object made from palisade fencing, containing a hawthorn tree—a sacred symbol in Celtic mythology marking boundaries between worlds. Director Matt Turtle says the exhibition serves as a 'cautionary tale and an act of resistance' against rising far-right rhetoric around homelessness, a subject explored in a 2022 museum report. The museum, founded in 2015 by Turtle and his wife Jessica, found its permanent home in a derelict groundsman's lodge in Finsbury Park in 2024 and is building a national collection for homelessness. During winter, it transforms into an emergency cold weather shelter.