Works
honeybirchstudio




Christmas Banister
Museum of the Home
2025

Public Installation

Artist

 Christmas Banister unifies the queer experience of kin with the marginal state of domestic thoroughfares. The work is an imagined alternative to a Christmas tree made up of balusters from stairways and corridors drawn by members of the London queer community, spindles from the Museum of the Home’s archive, and Birch’s own drawings.

To mark the installation of Christmas Banister, Birch performed ‘Sermon for a banister’ in the Museum of the Home’s chapel, a collection of short stories centred around their experiences within corridors and stairways.

Contributors: Beattie Green (they/them), Mhairi Campbell (she/her), Lula Ashdown (she/her), Alice Torres (she/they), Ying Monica Chong (she/her), Annie Purdy (she/they), PJ (they/them), Charlie Cocker (she/they), Bethany Kellaghan McGurk (she/her), Etta Voorsanger-Brill (she/her), Grace E. Sybil Boyten-Heyes (she/her), Rhubi Worth (she/her), + additional anonymous contributors.

Fabrication: Studio MakeCreate
Preliminary CAD: Tom Clark


Photography courtesy of Hallie Adukë Primus and Christa Holka.











Sermon for a Banister

Kings Cross (2016) - We’ve sacked off our friends to spend new years together. Wary of anyone being home, you had let out warning calls of our arrival. We’ve raced up your parents' staircase. These steps feel steeper than usual. We swing through your door and it slams shut as you lean your back into it.  I can’t tell the difference between the drum of my heart, the gunpowder sparking outside, or the echoing sounds of someone else walking up those stairs. Behind this door no-one can tell us no. 







Isle of Dogs (2018) -  Leaving after first ever one night stand, still with my first love. Are you sure you don't want to stay over? Don’t you live so far away? I’ve hurried into the corridor, I want to sleep in my bed.

We are lit by the dawning light from the window above the front door. I can hear the morning birds. She’s got her arms wrapped around her chest. She asks me for a kiss goodbye. It had been her first time with a girl. 

I turn to leave, trying not to move too fast. She leans over the railing to wave goodbye. I’m careful to shut the door gently.





 Neukölln (2022) - We’re the last to leave, tumbling down floor after floor. I think the walls are painted orange. I steady you. You say like me, or maybe you say that you think I’m hot. I can’t remember which. The banister is a dark brown. Painted and chipped. We round each corner with ease. Leaning on wall, leaning on banister, leaning on each other. I laugh. To love like this is to be in love with all of our friends. They're calling up to us. We’re late. 






Kingston (2023) - My friends are hosting fake christmas. My flatmates have been cooking all day and have already left with the potatoes and vegetables. We said we’d meet them there. We’ve been in my room. I feel guilty for not helping. 

I’m standing on the bottom step of the staircase, looking at the door. You’re halo’d by the outside. You have a big bag on your shoulder. We agree that this is really it this time. The light around you is growing brighter by the second. I can feel the hug we would have had. The door closes. It’s blue. No one's home but me. 



Barcelona (2025) - It’s hot. We’re all staying in one flat. I’m walking shirtless down the corridor from one end of the place to the other. It’s like a long runway. I am elated. No one takes a second glance.







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