RADIO
The head of the new V&A East, Gus Casely-Hayford, is opening his doors to kids of all colours and class
THE PICK OF THIS WEEK’S RADIO
The Essay: a Museum in the Making
Monday—Friday 10.45pm Radio 3
In spring 2025 something special will happen in east London: a new national museum, V&A East, is opening in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. It will consist of the Storehouse, which will house some of the V&A’s vast collection of artefacts, as well as a main museum and exhibition spaces housed in a f ive-storey block-on-a-spike, imagined by Dublin-based architecture practice O’Donnell + Tuomey.
“The Storehouse is the size of a football stadium,” says V&A East director Gus Casely-Hayford. “There are 280,000 objects and 1,000 archives being installed in the Storehouse at this very moment. The centre is cored out and there are glass floors and glass banisters, so rather than staring into cases you are at the very heart of the huge collection.”
Most of us will have to wait to see wonders that range from a medieval Spanish ceiling to PJ Harvey’s f irst electric guitar, but for some local residents, V&A East has already opened. Over the past year, 60-year-old Casely-Hayford has been taking objects to young people in the nearby community. Racially diverse and often from low-income households, these are kids who might not think a museum would want them, yet you can hear their curiosity and interest as they handle the objects this week on The Essay, presented by Casely-Hayford.
“Our collections are held in trust on behalf of everyone,” says Casely-Hayford. “Making the connection between our collections and their rightful owners, the public, as direct as possible is critical.” But aren’t these things fragile? “There has been no damage whatsoever, just young people being engaged, loving and learning. We have shown amazing things to thousands of young people in schools.”
Many of those young people “ look like me”, says the former director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington DC and presenter of Sky Arts’ Tate Walks. “I spent part of my childhood in south London, feeling marginalisation and sharing that experience with other people of colour. I know what it’s like to feel different, to feel lonely within a school or a professional environment. From a young age I’ve wanted to change the world. Part of that is to provide opportunities for people that might resemble my younger self.”
Casely-Hayford was brought up with three siblings – fashion designer Joe, TV executive Peter, and Coventry University Chancellor Margar
