5 things to do at V&A East Storehouse

The count-down is officially on today as we hit one month to go before V&A East Storehouse opens on 31 May!

It’s all systems go across the V&A East team as we get everything ready for you.  To mark the moment, here’s five new things you can look forward to at V&A East Storehouse. We can’t wait to welcome you in.

1. Book a one-to-one with iconic objects

Theatre lover? Film buff? Fashion fan? Into interior design? Find your inspiration, and get closer to objects than ever before, by booking some 1:1 time with any object at Storehouse as part of our new free Order an Object service. Bookings go live from 13 May – it’s completely free and open seven-days-a-week. So, book in advance at a time that suits you, and bring a friend to see up to 5 objects up-close.

From Leigh Bowery costumes to Jimi Hendrix and The Specials posters, Althea McNish prints, and Wales Bonner and Schiaparelli fashion, there’s so much to choose from. I’ll be booking to see this incredible Comme des Garçons Spring/Summer 1997 look – how about you? Find out more here.

2. Enjoy late night openings + our new e5 Storehouse café

We’ve got you covered with more flexible opening hours! We’re opening V&A East Storehouse 10:00-18:00, seven-days-a-week, with late night openings every Thursday and Saturday to 22:00. Our late-night openings will give you access to our new Order an Object service, curated self-guided experience and displays, special events, and café and social space, e5 Storehouse. Here you can relax, meet friends and enjoy some delicious locally sourced food and drink from the team behind the brilliant e5 Bakehouse.

3. Meet a Turner-Prize winning artist + be the first to get involved in our live events

We’re excited to launch our new programme of curated events, experiences, talks and micro-residencies from June 2025. Join us on Saturday 7 June to celebrate our first live event, back2back: Archival Bodies. Packed with installations, DJ sets, live performances, unique experiences across the space, we’re celebrating east London talent and exploring themes of intimacy, care and trust. At the heart of the event, we’ve invited creative collective, playbody to reimagine V&A East Storehouse as a playground through installations, sound, performance and interventions designed to foster connection between people, objects and place.

On 26 June, Turner-Prize-winning artist, Jasleen Kaur will kick-off our new series, A Life in the Work of Others, sharing her creative journey to-date, and works of others that have inspired her along the way.

How We Made It is our new talks series shining a light on a single creative project – the first talk on 17 July will feature experiential art collective, Marshmallow Laser Feast. And our first Look What I Found micro-residency will begin in July. This micro-residency gives creatives four days of researching the collections and culminates in a public ‘drop in’ session at the end. East London based transdisciplinary artist, Adam Moore, will be our first micro-resident, culminating in a show-and-tell session of selected objects and archives on 12 July. Stay tuned for more to come soon! 

4. Experience the largest Picasso work in the world!

Be wowed by a monumental – and rarely seen – 11-metre-wide stage cloth designed by Pablo Picasso for the Ballets Russes production, Le Train Bleu. The stage cloth’s huge size means it’s rarely been seen since its stage debut in 1924.  We’ve built a new purpose-built gallery of epic proportions to spotlight our amazing collections of stage cloths and large textiles – and we’ll rotate these regularly. 

Weighing in at 350kg, the Le Train Bleu stage cloth is one of the final objects to be installed before we open. It’s currently undergoing conservation treatments, including small tear repairs, consolidation of paint, and surface cleaning ahead of install, which will take up to 10 Technicians and Conservators specialising in paintings and textiles to complete. We can’t wait for you to see it.

5. Make V&A East Storehouse your own

Choose your own path through our self-guided experience featuring 100 mini displays literally hacked into the ends and sides of our storage racking. Across three themes – Collecting Stories, Sourcebook for Design and The Working Museum – we’re on a mission to share more diverse, topical, and meaningful stories about the V&A’s collections and archives and give you behind the scenes insight into the work of the museum.

Experience the breadth of the V&A’s collection and archives, from 13th century Jain sculpture to Issey Miyake fashion, Isokon Furniture by Marcel Breuer, sculptural Zaha Hadid-designed shoes, a Piaggio scooter customised by Daniel Liebskind, and Thomas Heatherwick’s model for London 2012’s Olympic cauldron. Other highlights include ceramics from Bow, Isfahan, Sèvres and Seoul, Margot Fonteyn’s signed 1954 Firebird ballet shoes, Hew Locke’s multimedia print The Prize (2006-2007), and comic books from the National Art Library’s collection.

See work celebrating east London and global creativity, alongside newly acquired works by photographer Mariette Pathy Allen, fashion designers Imane Ayissi and Rahemur Rahman, ceramic artist Xanthe Somers, and Lebanese artist and designer Najla El Zein.

We’ll be revealing more as we get closer to opening – and you can find more info about V&A East Storehouse here.