A wallpaper specialist can attest to how important a pattern can be to someone living in that room. From an elegant accented wall to a wildly expressive children’s bedroom, wallpaper expresses so much about the people who live in it.

However, so few of those stories have actually been immortalised, which is why the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester has launched the Open House project, which explores why certain styles and patterns endure so long in the memory and why they evoke such strong emotions.

According to curator Olivia Heron, the project aims to highlight that wallpaper was the backdrop to so many people’s lives, and that these unique patterns have stories to tell and snapshots to show of a moment in time and how trends rise and fall over the years.

This is particularly true in the North West of England, where so many mass-produced rolls were created using similar machinery to those used in the cotton industry.

This includes the flower-inspired trends that returned after the First World War, the garden-inspired styles of the 1920s and 30s, the more psychedelic and luminous styles of the 1960s and the rise in mass-produced, bright branded wallpapers in the 1980s and 1990s.

It highlights the rises and peaks of mass-produced wallpaper patterns, as well as its changes in use with the rise of minimalism and the Scandi design philosophy in the 1990s, where people opted for more subdued patterns and flat colours, with the accent wall highlighting a return to luxury wallpaper use.

It also highlights how this change coincides with the changes in our relationship with our lived environments; with many people renting rather than buying their accommodation, the individuality that comes from wallpaper is a joy that they do not necessarily get to enjoy.

As well as this, it showcases the importance of wallpaper patterns to our memories, with good and bad memories often intertwined with the memories of the patterns surrounding them.