{"id":15120,"date":"2026-04-15T18:38:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/15120\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T18:38:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T18:38:54","slug":"a-fresh-look-at-contemporary-culture-gus-casely-hayford-director-of-va-east-takes-us-inside-the-new-london-museum-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/15120\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A fresh look at contemporary culture\u2019: Gus Casely-Hayford, director of V&A East, takes us inside the new London museum – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

The V&A brand is expanding with the launch of the long-awaited V&A East Museum in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, this month. Its director, Gus Casely-Hayford, is promising \u201ca fresh look at contemporary culture through the V&A\u2019s global collections\u201d.<\/p>\n

The new five-storey building, due to open on 18 April, joins the V&A East Storehouse<\/a>, which opened in 2025, and will sit alongside venues for the BBC, Sadler\u2019s Wells East and London College of Fashion, which together make up the East Bank cultural quarter. The V&A East Storehouse, which opened last May, has already drawn more than 500,000 visitors. The original Victoria and Albert Museum was founded on Pall Mall in 1852 and moved to South Kensington in 1857.<\/p>\n

Casely-Hayford declines to give a visitor figure target for the first year of V&A East but points out that research conducted in the first six months of opening showed that more than 31% of visitors to V&A East Storehouse were between the ages of 16 and 35, more than 45% of UK audiences were from minority ethnic groups, and 55% of visitors were Londoners.<\/p>\n

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British artist Thomas J. Price\u2019s 18ft bronze sculpture A Place Beyond (2026) greets visitors on the forecourt of the museum David Parry\/PA Media Assignments<\/p>\n

The new museum, Casely-Hayford says, is for \u201ceveryone\u201d; he describes how his team has focused on creating open and public spaces and programming that meets the needs of younger audiences, those living, working and studying in the four Olympic boroughs (Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest), as well as people who \u201cmay not have felt comfortable in museums previously\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt V&A East, and across our two sites, we\u2019re deeply embedded in our local communities,\u201d Casely-Hayford says. \u201cWe\u2019re locally rooted with a global outlook. We\u2019ve created our sites with and for our audiences and have spoken to and consulted with over\u202f30,000\u202flocal people and creatives through education and career initiatives, preopening\u202fevents\u202fand activities, working in partnership with organisations and collectives across east London.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every aspect of the new institution has been developed in collaboration with the V&A East Youth Collective, a paid consultation programme for young people living, working and studying across east London. \u201cOur V&A East Youth Collective community has helped shape everything from the design and content of V&A East Museum\u2019s Why We Make galleries and our shops, to ticket prices, the V&A East brand, creative commissions, staff uniforms, co-productions with local artists and creatives, and much more,\u201d Casely-Hayford says.<\/p>\n

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Entrance to V&A East Museum\u2019s Why We Make galleries \u00a9 David Parry for the V&A<\/p>\n

Topical themes<\/p>\n

The Why We Make galleries feature more than 500 objects from across the V&A\u2019s collection, highlighting themes from representation to wellbeing, justice and environmental action. \u201cThe gallery themes are topical and based on what our audiences told us that mattered to them: identity, representation, health and wellbeing, and how we all have a responsibility to create a more sustainable future for everyone,\u201d Casely-Hayford says.<\/p>\n

The section \u201cBreaking Boundaries\u201d, for instance, examines how creatives have tried to push disciplines in new directions, helping break down barriers of gender, race and class; it features radical ballet costumes by the performance artist Leigh Bowery and his creative collaborator, corset maker Mr Pearl.<\/p>\n

V&A East will also launch a rolling six-month commissions programme called New Work, debuting pieces by artists including Tania Bruguera of Cuba, who has made a stained-glass installation, Carrie Mae Weems and the Turner Prize-nominated artist Rene Mati\u0107. A major sculptural installation by Thomas J. Price depicting a Black woman will greet visitors at the entrance (the next series of creative commissions will be revealed later this year).<\/p>\n

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Still from Carrie Mae Weems\u2019 V&A East New Work commission, The Long Goodbye. On view in the Film Room inside V&A East Museum\u2019s Why We Make galleries \u00a9 David Parry for the V&A<\/p>\n

The museum opens with the exhibition\u00a0The Music Is Black: A British Story (18 April-3 January 2027), charting the influence of Black British music from 1900 to the present day through music trailblazers such as Winifred Atwell, Janet Kay, Stormzy and Little Simz. The show also highlights the impact of the Windrush generation and explores Caribbean influences on the UK music scene.<\/p>\n

In addition, the exhibition includes works from important Black British artists such as Sonia\u00a0Boyce, Tam Joseph,\u00a0Vicky Lindo,\u00a0and\u00a0Bill Brookes and\u00a0Frank Bowling. Sokari\u00a0Douglas Camp\u2019s\u00a0recent\u00a0sculpture\u00a0Red Coats and Flags\u00a0(2023) traces\u00a0connections between African\u00a0musical\u00a0masquerades,\u00a0Caribbean carnival\u00a0traditions\u00a0and carnival celebrations around Britain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our soundtrack, the music that over the course of the last century helped to shape our nation,\u201d Casely-Hayford says. \u201cYou could say this is a story of diversity but that would be to not give it its due … this is our shared story, eloquently, exquisitely crafted into poetry. I hope it is an example of how culture has and can draw us together, build links across time and geography that are meaningful and lasting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Inside V&A East Museum\u2019s inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story \u00a9 David Parry for the V&A<\/p>\n

In 2020, Casely-Hayford wrote an influential opinion piece<\/a> in The Art Newspaper about tackling inequality in the arts following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, saying: \u201cI still find it hard to fathom that we have never formally and robustly confronted our colonial past.\u201d His aim, he added, was to \u201cbuild a sector that embraces and benefits from the glorious diversity of our nation\u201d.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re proud to celebrate cultural and demographic complexity <\/p>\n

Gus Casely-Hayford, director of V&A East<\/p>\n

He reinforced this message last year, telling The Guardian that V&A East will be \u201cunapologetically diverse\u201d. Whether museums today can satisfy all audiences is debatable, but Casely-Hayford stresses that \u201cwe are proud to celebrate the cultural and demographic complexity of the people we serve. It is what we were created to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Free entry is sacrosanct<\/p>\n

When asked about the most challenging ethical issue museums face today, Casely-Hayford says: \u201cBeing funded through public subsidy in a time when resource is tighter than in recent memory, we must demonstrate how we offer distinct and important value to our audiences.\u201d V&A East is free to access with charges for temporary exhibitions.<\/p>\n

The museum is launching as debate intensifies around whether national UK museums, which offer free entry to all, should start charging visitors, especially foreign tourists. \u201cWe believe it\u2019s fundamental that access to the UK\u2019s national collections and institutions remains free; we don\u2019t want to put up barriers or make accessing museums prohibitive,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Outside V&A East Museum\u2019s Why We Make galleries \u00a9 Hufton+Crow<\/p>\n

Asked about funding in general, Casely-Hayford points out that the V&A overall is partially funded by the UK government alongside income generated from across its venues. \u201cTo supplement income that will be generated by the V&A and other sources of funding, an uplift to our ongoing grant in aid was agreed in 2020-21 as part of the business case approved by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport,\u201d he says. This extra sum of \u00a39m sustains the programme of exhibitions, events and education work across all the V&A museums, as well as maintaining collections and permanent galleries and displays.<\/p>\n

According to figures provided by the Greater London Authority (GLA), London\u2019s governing body, the total cost of V&A East is \u00a3115m.\u00a0The GLA has meanwhile committed to cover operational funding gaps of up to \u00a312m over 15 years for both the V&A Storehouse East and the new museum, if required.<\/p>\n

V&A East Museum does not have a separate collection\u2014displays are drawn from the V&A\u2019s overarching collection\u2014nor its own acquisition budget, adds Casely-Hayford. \u201cAcquiring items for display at our two V&A East sites, and that speak to V&A East\u2019s vision and mission, is a strategic collecting priority for the V&A.\u201d New acquisitions include Yinka Ilori\u2019s Captain Hook armchair from the series If Chairs Could Talk (2015).<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Music is Black: A British Story<\/a>, V&A East, 18 April-3 January 2027<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The V&A brand is expanding with the launch of the long-awaited V&A East Museum in Queen Elizabeth Olympic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[27,662,663,1111,6926],"class_list":{"0":"post-15120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-london","9":"tag-museums","10":"tag-museums-heritage","11":"tag-openings","12":"tag-va-east"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116410185607685511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}