Our year 12 and 13 Art learners welcomed Gus Casely-Hayford, the inaugural director of the forthcoming V&A East, to share three pieces of precious history from the museum’s archive. This intriguing session supported our learners with the written element of their A level portfolio teaching them how to write about their artwork and significant objects, making wider connections to the world their works are situated in. 

Gus is a celebrated British curator, cultural historian, broadcaster and lecturer. When speaking on this exciting initiative to bring pieces of the museum into the local community, Gus shares: "Objects are glorious. I have spent my life dedicated to promoting and protecting them, but they are always made richer when animated by people's love and passion. That is the driver of our V&A East schools programme, to take small numbers of truly special objects out to the schools of east London." 

It was truly something special having three precious pieces of history brought into our college. Gus allowed one of our learners to present it to each learner in the class so they could closely inspect the objects while he detailed their fascinating history and told the story of their significance to our nation and the V&A museum.  

This unparalleled access to these beautiful objects of historical and artistic significance are representative of the vision of V&A East and V&A East Storehouse. Gus stressed the fact that these two buildings are to be a part of the community, a hub of creativity that will actively seek to be accessible in service of the public. The Storehouse will be a purpose-built home for over 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books and 1,000 archives from the V&A’s collections. This offers the public the unique experience of seeing behind the scenes of a working museum, exploring why and how objects get collected by museums and having the freedom of searching through a vast collection.   

“It was very exciting to see artifacts all from over the world come to our school in East London. As an artist, I often have to visit museums and art institutions in Central London to learn about art but thanks to V&A East now that will change! I'm very happy to see that the area I’m from will soon be the heart of cultural importance displaying objects from across the globe because of the V&A,” Abbie, year 13 art learner and winner of BBC Young artist of the year.  

Following Gus’ talk, our learners were set an interactive task to step into the world of a curator. Led by Jenny Dunkin, learners were tasked with choosing an object and telling its story. For the purpose of the exercise learners used their imaginations to make up a story about the object ensuring it was engaging and succinct. This exercise reflects the role of a curator when curating an exhibition and producing museum labels for the objects in the exhibit. Museum labels must provide more than information – they must also provide inspiration, reframe perspectives and leave a lasting impact on the museumgoer. Learners worked in pairs and presented their stories to the rest of the class. This interactive activity was not only a lot of fun but also helped our learners to gain an awareness of different roles, functions, audiences and consumers of art, craft and design.  

Thanks to Gus Casely-Hayford for visiting our college and welcoming us to the museum for the community. We look forward to visiting when it opens! Thanks also to Kamal Hussain, Jenny Dunkin, Sara Ismail and Fazela Khatun for facilitating such a productive session for our learners.  

“Thoroughly enjoyed meeting the staff and students at London Design and Engineering UTC – a very dynamic and creative group. The quality of the questions and discussion is obviously indicative of a brilliant, thriving student body who one senses are going to do important and innovative things in the creative sector in the future.” Gus Casely-Hayford.