A Civic Museum for Whom? V&A East

V&A East Museum opened on a changed ground, at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Built for a global spectacle in 2012, then slowly rebuilt again for luxury flats rather than social housing. Just next door, residents of the Carpenters Estate fought plans that would push them out of their lifelong homes. So when I walked into V&A East, I wasn't a critic or a curator passing through, I was also a local! A local who doesn't live in a shiny new build or hipster land. So I needed to ask: is this for us?

The good stuff first. The two permanent galleries, Why We Make, are free. That matters to people like my neighbours, who check prices before they walk anywhere. The labels are accessible (no jargon, no gatekeeping. Finally!). Just clear, warm explanations of why making matters, and why any of this belongs here.

There are small invitations to participate: touch a material, pick up a pencil. Tiny acts that say: you belong here, not just as a viewer.

The display mixes every art form possible. It shows diversity, like the real soul of East London.

I found a couple of relevant community programmes. A free housing walk from Blackwall Reach to V&A East Storehouse. Oh, Storehouse. And The Common Room at Storehouse (again, Storehouse): free workshops for community groups, with a pre-visit call so they can plan what actually works for them. The café does meal deals for local residents and young people but, hold on, this was in 2025...

I leave it there. Let's go back to V&A East.

But then I hit the Black Music exhibition. It sounds incredible but it's also £20.

I tried to check for community allocations but nothing came through. I hope there are internal comms between the museum and community groups and local organisations. Or maybe I'm too jippy peace and love for that.

Because I thought about the groups I work with locally through Kitchen Stories: Recipes of Belonging. The ones in Newham, for example, and the ones from the council estates on Hackney and the Tower Hamlets border. Will they pay £20? Some won't. Some can't. Some might, but only once. Meanwhile, the neighbours in the luxury towers probably can.

Look, I understand museums need money. But V&A East just showed me they know how to do access. The Common Room was free. The housing walk was free. So when the flagship exhibition costs real money, and no community tickets appear, I have to ask: why not this one?

But here's what gives me pause and hope.

On the wall of V&A East's reception, Tania Bruguera has installed a stained glass text. Light pours through words that cut straight through: "A civic museum does not only resemble the community, but belongs to the community... A civic museum prioritises people over investments... A civic museum resists urban displacement."

I stood there, camera in hand, in the museum on Olympic Park land. The same land where displacement happened. And someone said yes, put that here. That's not nothing.

Then I knew they worked with communities before opening. Turns out, V&A East consulted over 30,000 young people across east London. They shaped the Why We Make galleries: the themes, the objects, even how the space was designed. The museum's director personally visited 100 east London schools to listen. That's not tokenism. That's real groundwork.

So does the New Work commissioning programme. Twice a year, artists create work in response to a theme, exploring how art and design intersect with daily life. For that you don't need an extra ticket, just the act of walking back in. I want more of that, to be honest. It feels like the museum is creating its own East London collection, and it makes sense.

But programming, man... we need more.

The Black Music exhibition is museum programming. It's the flagship. It has the marketing budget, the BBC partnership, the festival. And it costs money.

Bruguera's glass says belongs to the community. I want to believe it. But belonging isn't just a manifesto on a wall. It's a ticketing policy. It's who can walk through which door. It's free programming to have the community voice inside every day in the workshop room, in the corridors, in the outside space. There's plenty of green space to make wonderful things and activate the museum. But ok, you just opened... so I'll wait a bit.

So here I am, standing in V&A East, holding two things at once:

Yes, this museum is trying. That's real. That's progress.

And, until the ticketing structure stops filtering who gets through those paid doors (and I mean this with every single museum), parked on land that already pushed people out, I have to wonder: civic for whom?

I'm local. I'll keep coming back. I'll keep asking.