This Is Your V&A: We Take A Private Look Inside V&A East and The Music Is Black

Inside V&A East, the scale lands first. Light cuts across wide concrete surfaces, softening the edges of a building designed to hold weight, not just structurally, but culturally. The building housing V&A East has been designed by the internationally renowned architecture practice O'Donnell + Tuomey, whose approach to cultural spaces is founded in material sensitivity, civic presence, and a deep understanding of how people move through institutions. Known for projects that balance monumentality with intimacy, the Dublin-based studio has delivered a structure that is grounded in East London and expansive in its ambition. Ahead of its public opening on April 18, New Wave moved through the space during a quiet preview, where the absence of crowds sharpened every detail, from the acoustics of each room to the way sound travels between floors.

The architecture carries a deliberate openness. Sightlines stretch across levels, allowing different parts of the museum to speak to one another. Stratford sits just beyond its walls, and that proximity is felt throughout as context. The museum absorbs its surroundings, reflecting the density and diversity of East London back into its programming. An note for the museum this opening moment is The Music Is Black, an exhibition that traces a century of British music through Black British influence. The curation builds through fragments, allowing genres, movements, and moments to sit alongside one another in constant dialogue. Moving through it, the experience becomes about immersion, with sound, Fashion image, and history working in tandem.

“We have over the last five years spoken to more than 30,000 young people,” Gus Casely-Hayford, V&A East Director tells us, standing within the museum he has helped shape from the ground up. “I personally have visited more than a hundred schools, speaking to many thousands of young people, but also listening to them, to their concerns, their hopes, their aspirations.” That process is embedded into the fabric of the institution. “They want an institution that speaks to their priorities, their needs, but is also relevant and useful,” he continues. “And we have tried to shape that here.”

Sound operates as structure within The Music Is Black. The Exhibiton supported by Sennheiser is accompanied by an audio guide through the space. Reggae basslines stretch low across rooms, while jungle’s breakbeats fracture the air in sharp, restless bursts. Grime pulses in the distance, UK garage vocals drift and dissolve, and soul threads everything together. The exhibition uses sound as architecture, guiding movement and shaping how long each moment lingers. “The music that we fell in love to, the music that we got married to, the music that was played at the wake for someone that we lost,” Gus says, “that is Black British music.” There is a pause before he adds, “It doesn’t just speak to the Black community, this is the story of Britain that has yet to be told.”

Visually, the exhibition holds the same intensity. Flyers, worn and creased, carry the physical memory of nights that shaped entire scenes. Photographs move between intimacy and scale, from crowded dancefloors to solitary studio sessions. Personal artefacts anchor the narrative, pulling history into something immediate and tactile. “We wanted to create ways into this collection,” Gus explains, “many of these objects have been in store and not seen by anyone other than museum specialists and academics for generations, and we wanted to give them back to a younger generation as points of inspiration.”

That idea of return runs through the wider museum. Within Victoria and Albert Museum East, collections are not presented as distant or untouchable, but as something shared. “This whole collection belongs to you,” Gus says plainly. “This is a public collection and what we tried to do here is to give it back, give it back to the world.” As we move beyond the exhibition into the space titled Why We Make, the breadth of that thinking expands. Over a thousand years of creativity sit within reach, reframed through themes chosen in collaboration with young people across East London. The result is a gallery that moves across time and geography without hierarchy, where objects speak through the perspectives of those who will inherit them.

“In this space you can travel across geography, you can travel across time,” Gus reflects. “Through amazing narratives that flow through some of the greatest things that have ever been made.” That journey includes a recalibration of what has historically been excluded. “There isn’t that much in the way of material from the African continent or from South America,” he acknowledges. “So we have had to acquire works, particularly to be able to tell the stories that are told in this space, and I’m really proud of the acquisitions that we’ve made.”

Moments of proximity to place are constant. A bright pink taffeta dress by Molly Goddard sits within view, its presence rooted just a bus ride away. Nearby, a portrait by Kehinde Wiley repositions a young woman from Dalston into a visual language once reserved for royalty. Outside, an 18-foot bronze sculpture by Thomas J. Price stands facing the horizon, monumental and unassigned, representing no one and everyone at once. “This is a museum that’s dedicated to the rest of us,” Gus says. “It’s about you and I, and feeling recognised, seeing our stories given the platform they deserve.”

The intention extends beyond representation into access. “What I hope this space is, is not just a space of inspiration but also a catalyst,” he explains. “A foothold in the sector, because that is something so many people felt they lacked.”

That focus is rooted in lived understanding. “I have very often visited museums and not felt totally welcome,” he admits. “So we have worked really hard to make sure that this is a place where everyone feels invited, where they feel reflected in what we think is important.” Collaboration has shaped every layer of the institution. Youth collectives have informed everything from exhibitions to uniforms, from programming to the food served on site. “We want to hear from young people, but we also want to integrate their creative thinking into the things that we do,” Gus says. “It’s absolutely part and parcel of the way that we work.”

That extends into the exhibition itself. “We wanted something that would connect everyone,” he explains. “One of the few areas of cultural practice that touches everyone is music.” And so The Music Is Black emerges not just as an exhibition, but as a statement. “We wanted to tell it not just as a Black story, but as the British story,” Gus says. “It’s the British story of cultural creativity that has not been fully acknowledged.” There is a weight to that recognition. “There are things which will make you angry, that will make you upset,” he continues. “But underpinning it is one of the most uplifting stories of indefatigability.” That extends to collaborations with artists such as Tania Bruguera, who worked with young people to create a stained glass installation within the space. It also extends to figures like Samuel Ross, whose involvement has helped shape the institution’s direction. “He exemplifies so many of the values that matter to us,” Gus says. “Not just excellence, but generosity.”

The story stretches far beyond the museum walls. Partnerships across East Bank, the BBC, and institutions like Hackney Empire will carry the exhibition into classrooms, radio, and live performance spaces across the country. “Wherever you are, there will be opportunities to engage with The Music Is Black,” Gus says. Standing within V&A East, that reach already feels present. The building holds sound, history, and possibility in equal measure, but more importantly, it holds space, for stories that have long existed without one.

“This is your V&A,” Gus says finally. “We want you to come and feel that you can make it yours.”