During Covid, I was finishing my MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. As we had a digital degree show, our physical degree show was postponed by one year and eventually took place at Dora House. I was the class ‘rep’ and therefore led the curatorial team for the show. I remember installing a large-scale artwork in a public space for the first time. I was installing my piece Are We Sinking? on the terrace of Dora House for Space Lapse: RCA Sculpture 2020 (June 2021). Even though I started making the piece before Covid, it had a premonitory feeling of what was about to come.
I remember being quite anxious about following all the regulations at the time, but the Royal Society of Sculptors’ team was so welcoming that I decided to apply and became a member in the next round. Dora House has always felt, to me, like a place where I find not only incredible sculptors and makers, but also my extended family.
Tere Chad MRSS, Trustee (pictured above installing Are We Sinking? at Dora House in 2021)
Ahead of the Year of the Home in 2026 when we celebrate the Society's 50 years at Dora House, we asked members to share with us their personal memories of Dora House. We will be sharing them throughout 2026 as part of a programme of this milestone, marked also by the delivery of our project Creating a Home for Sculptors. If you have a memory you would like to share, you can still do so via this link.
