Since 2017, Dr. Tristram Hunt has been at the helm of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has since become a family of institutions that include a museum in Dundee, Scotland, the Young V&A in Bethnal Green and the upcoming V&A East Storehouse and Museum. Ever the voice of reason, Hunt has also championed restitution of art and objects to other countries and heirs.
Tristam Hunt © Jamie Stoker.
CULTUR.ART sat down with the profound and insightful museum director to ask him about making art more accessible to everyone, the challenges facing cultural institutions at the moment, and the power of cultural regeneration.
Does it matter how the younger generations connect to art?
I think all entry points are really valid. What we saw with the Taylor Swift Trail was the way in which we brought new audiences into different parts of the permanent collection: the British Galleries, the Raphael Court. Even if they were coming in for Taylor, they were able to see the museum and the collections. We’ve had these lovely responses on Tripadvisor. These access points are really important.
Installation shot of Taylor Swift Songbook Trail at the V&A © V&A Press Office.
Hunt with Naomi Campbell.
How concerned are you about digitalisation?
We fight it but also meet it halfway. For a Millennial to whom it is just kind of natural, we have to meet them on their territory and bring them in. Yes, come and take photos so it feels natural, and in the process you begin to appreciate the value of material culture. That’s why we have invested so much in what is now the top photography gallery in the country. Everyone now is a photographer, but what does it mean? So explaining the art of photography, the camera collection, incredible photographs from the 1860s and actually allowing people to have that sense of lineage is really important.
When it comes to what a person can and will visit, view, read and study, diversity is not only about age. Geographical location, socio-economic background, race and gender identities all play a role. How is the V&A helping to bridge these divides?
The collection of this museum is a consequence of the accumulation of multiple cultures, identities and traditions. There is cultural appropriation here and there is cultural appreciation. And the space between them is often very hard to delineate.
But we are a museum of art, design and performance celebrating human creativity, so we’re here to celebrate the makers in order to inspire the next generation of artists and designers and creatives. The worst thing would be to slice and dice on identity and politics, rather than sticking to our mission of superb, high quality art and design. We often think of the history of empires here, and what that means. But empires — whether it’s the Roman, the Ashanti or the Ottoman — brought together multiple cultures and out of that emerged many of our collections. So having some humility around that is really important.
The nature of the UK has changed remarkably compared to what it was 50 years ago in terms of ethnic and religious diversity, in terms of identification around sexual orientation and gender identity, so for a museum paid for by the people we have to reflect that. We have to make sure our programming, our acquisitions and the galleries speak to that; but crucially, we have to make sure our staff speak to that as well.
Because if people see people like them, then they feel much more comfortable coming into the space.
We are working hard on ensuring diversity at all levels of the organisation. You’re not simply doing one exhibition and forgetting about it; it’s inbuilt into the system. For example, we had a really brilliant exhibition on Africa Fashion and as a result of that the curator who worked on it — Dr. Christine Checinska — became a permanent member of staff as our Senior Curator of African and Diaspora Textiles and Fashion. Now it’s a collecting policy to continue to acquire African fashion as our collection is historically very Euro-centric. That’s the kind of long-term thinking that shifts things.
Science tells us that art can make us feel better; can you tell us about your social prescription programmes?
We saw during Covid the loss of connection that came with the virus. I was here by myself most of the time during lockdown with the objects and the security team, but actually you missed the people. So it’s really important that these programmes we run - especially with dementia, which is brutal on the sufferers but also on the carers - have the civic space to allow for that. The NHS is very strong now on social prescribing and I think that’s fabulous.
With young people, it’s about teaching “slow looking” and concentration and moving away. They will always interact through digital, their phone, and that’s fine, but also having that moment of concentration through art.
For young people, that they have the confidence to come in here, which then gives them a lifelong ability to feel they can step into places of culture; that these are places for them and they are welcomed, is so vital.
V&A South Kensington Museum © E. Nina Rothe.
How do you make sure exhibitions are engaging for a younger audience at the Young V&A?
We just closed our “Japan: Myths to Manga” exhibition at the Young V&A and it was our first paid-for exhibition there, so we are finding our way on this. It did well; I think what we lacked there, and we’ll respond with in future exhibition, is interactivity. We need more moments for engagement. We’ll have more interactive components next time.
What are the biggest challenges you’re facing as an institution?
For the V&A particularly, it’s this exciting, historic moment of developing into a multi-site museum. South Kensington will always be the home of the V&A because the fabric, the identity and the history of the building is an artefact in itself. We have opened the V&A Dundee, Young V&A and then crucially in Stratford the two new sites: the Storehouse and the V&A East Museum. Having that conversation about what is particular to each site in terms of the audiences and the programme, relative to what remains totally V&A, is at the heart of our mission. Institutionally, that’s our challenge over the next five years.
In terms of the UK, it’s how can you do more and more — whether it’s programming, education, soft power, collections care — amid tightening public finances. The money coming into the museum from the state is less and less. At the same time as there’s more and more demands for transparency and accountability around extra funding.
Can you elaborate on these funding challenges?
We get about forty-five percent of our money from the government and that’s really important in terms of being a national collection. These are the taxpayers’ objects and we are custodians of them.
We began in the great exhibition of 1851 [as the South Kensington Museum], which was a celebration of commerce and manufacturing and we’ve always been quite open to working with other sources of income, so generating that is instinctive to the museum. But it’s difficult as the demands grow.
V&A Main Entrance © V&A Museum
And charging for admission would presumably go against the principles of making art more accessible?
Absolutely. In the old modelling, you lost essentially fifty percent of your audience when you started charging. The V&A has been free; it charged; and now it is free again, but even when you have systems to support low income communities or residents of London, just the notion of having to prove that is a barrier. So if we can make it free entry for the permanent collection but then through membership programmes, exhibitions sales, through the shop and cafe we can manage finances, that’s the ideal scenario for us.
It’s a lovely London thing, to go in to see some favourites in the National Gallery or the V&A or the Wallace Collection.
Without getting too political - though we could argue that art is always political - how do you feel this new government will help the arts?
It’s just too early to tell; we’re twelve weeks in. I know Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is a strong supporter of cultural institutions, and I know Keir [Starmer] himself was very keen on cultural education and making sure in terms of curriculum review that there is the kind of cultural provision that is needed. There are things that don’t cost money to do; like we have terrible trouble with getting appointments sorted and trustees processed, and there is also long-term support needed particularly for regional museums. Whatever issues we have here, we are still London. And that’s not the case in Nottingham or Derby or Leicester…
It is a fact that there are more visitors to South Kensington than to Venice. The numbers are really remarkable.
Can you tell us about the importance of cultural regeneration?
Dundee was begun before my time but opened while I was here, and rather like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, it was a conscious decision around cultural regeneration for a city wrestling with deindustrialization and a sense of what its identity was. It was a really successful coalition with the universities, the city council, the government and it has really worked. In terms of visits to the city, hotel occupancy, business interest — all of those point to the fact that working on cultural regeneration is a success.
I think at the moment, the number of young people taking Maths A-level and doing a technology degree on the one hand is great. But on the other hand, to lose sight of the value of culture that is so intrinsic to the essence of humanity, particularly in this digital, AI, synthetic era, is an error.
We can’t sit on our laurels; we have to remake that case - to show why ceramics or photography or glass are valuable, important and interesting, sexy endeavours. And we have to do that month in and month out. If you try too hard to simply be a visitors’ attraction, you’re going to lose what is important about the institution.
Their Majesties The Emperor and Empress of Japan visit Young V&A, Bethnal Green, London © David Parry, V&A.
Are you confident that the V&A East is going to regenerate that area of London?
Absolutely. The opening of cultural institutions such as Sadler’s Wells East, the London College of Fashion, the BBC recording studios, UCL East and now East V&A in a part of London that has always been culturally underserved and still has high levels of poverty and unemployment, is going to really help. It will provide not only jobs but also shift understanding, shift identity, and create exciting synergies.
And it has been shown around the world that this stuff works!
Where should someone who has never been to the V&A start?
I do think, with a big museum like ourselves, you want to pick out seven objects to go and see to give you a sense of it all. You want to be in the Cast Courts; that gives you a sense of the sublime and it’s a wonderful starting point. I think you do need to see the Raphael Cartoons because they are the greatest works of the High Renaissance in the country. Then, I’d head to the jewellery gallery to see the Sutherland Diamonds and Queen Victoria’s coronet. And maybe the photography centre for a sense of the modern. But you don’t want to wander from gallery to gallery because you’d be exhausted! That’s what I do with my children when I take them to, for example, the National Gallery. I say, “You’re only going to see five things, that’s all you’re allowed.” That is the joy of being free, because you can come back and build your muscle tissue in regards to the collection.
Do you have a favourite artefact?
I adore the Raphael cartoons - “The Miraculous Draught of the Fishes” is one of my favourite pieces. Upstairs in the ceramics galleries, we have these amazing Dutch tulip holders in the shape of Chinese pagodas in blue and white, and it’s so interesting because it’s such a story of exchange and appropriation and appreciation. And then I go to the Cast Courts as well, because there is something enormous about being surrounded by Michelangelo’s David and Donatello — you can lose yourself in that space. And there is a very nice bench right there where you can sit!
V&A South Kensington Museum © E. Nina Rothe.
What’s coming up that you’re excited about?
The history of the V&A is intimately connected to objects from South Asia of which the Mughal past is such a significant component. Through the East India Company repository, which is the vehicle for British Colonialism, it has its own museum of collecting; that museum comes into the V&A. We are delighted to be doing this exhibition and celebrating that past, and actually in a sense one of the benefits of being a museum with a breadth of our collection, we can kind of stay out of those political conversations which kind of rise and fall.
We’ve preserved these items and looked after them and now we can celebrate that culture. For South Asian communities in the UK — Muslim or Sikh, or Hindu or Buddhist — actually it’s such an important part of the story of South Asia. And not just India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. I’m really looking forward to it.
By E. Nina Rothe. Check out all of her amazing platforms! https://www.eninarothe.com/
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