The history of Brixton’s Caroline Supply Store

The Behind that Window exhibition in Brixton shares the experiences, struggles, joys and successes of an immigrant Chinese family who ran the Caroline Supply Store at 166 Caroline Street.

The curators Tamzyn Botha and Sally Gaule are encouraging the Brixton community and general public to experience the history left behind by a family that ran a convenience store for 56 years.

Botha said, “An exhibition of this nature fosters connections between people, across gender, race, and money because I think everyone can take something from it. They can see parts of themselves in the Hong family.” Gaule added that having people walk into the exhibition and share their own stories of the Hong’s or how they relate to the exhibition shows the sense of community in Brixton.

Of the family’s personal belongings such as photos, letters, memorabilia of the Hong family is put on display at the exhibition, they are accompanied by direct quotes from members of the family. An example of such is the quote ‘In winter we played in the window display because it was warm and sunny there’. The piece that stood out for Botha was Mrs Hong’s engagement dress which she discovered had only been worn once, put into a box as they were few reasons and chances to wear it again. The dress is actually placed next to a photo of the engagement ceremony while the photo of Mr Hong in his Chinese Nationalist Party (Also known as Kuomintang or KMT) uniform during his times of service. Gaule explained, “He looked so young and it was such a formal photograph it looked like it was taken in a studio. It makes you wonder about his life and what it became because it’s just worlds apart from the isolate moment.”

The space itself isn’t bound to a theme or particular narrative outside of the daily ongoing and experiences of the store and the family. For the exhibition the duo tried to keep the space as close to what it looked and felt like in the past while relating it to the family’s experiences.

Gaule expressed, “It has an unusual beauty about it, it’s simple, it’s not pretentious, it’s not trying to be something it’s not.”
Botha added, “What has elevated the exhibition as a whole is that it’s in the very space. If we had put all this material into another space it would’ve been a completely different exhibition.”

An example of this being one of the small rooms with nothing but a light, box and text on the wall. This part had to be closed off during the apartheid era whenever the inspector would visit the store as they were not allowed to have the store lead into the living quarters.

The Behind that Window exhibition will be open on Wednesdays and Sundays until 29 November between 11am and 4pm at 166 Caroline Street, Brixton. Entry is free. For more details, contact shade.brixton@gmail.com