Written by Fazela Khatun, Community Engagement Assistant (STEP Internship), August 2025
What does it mean to take up space as a young person from East London within the arts and cultural sector? This is the question the V&A East Youth Collective explored throughout their 10-month youth programme.
As the programme drew to a close, the Collective spent the final months of summer planning a showcase event at Storehouse in East London this August.
In the lead up to planning the showcase event, the project’s initial focus was on the word ‘manifesto’ a concept the Collective did not resonate with. The term felt unfamiliar and confusing to them as a cohort. After many discussions about the purpose of the showcase, the group decided to move away from the idea of a manifesto and instead concentrate on what truly mattered, creating a community event that celebrated young people’s presence. Allowing them to make their mark on the institution and represent themselves as the voices of the future.
The question “What does it mean to take up space?” continued to echo. The Collective, a cohort of young people aged 16-24, many from underrepresented backgrounds wanted to be seen. Their shared desire for representation, diversity, and inclusion within museum and arts spaces felt vital.
After months of collaboration, Producer Sara Ismail and Creative Practitioner Ahadi King’Ori worked with the group to shape the theme of the showcase, Redefining Access and what it means to take up space. The event would celebrate collective joy, creation, and disruption, inviting the public to join in reimagining how we reclaim and rebuild space together through participatory workshops, community interventions, and joyful gatherings.
The showcase took place on Thursday 14 August 2025, marking the culmination of months of planning and anticipation. The day was filled with creativity, connection, and a sense of collective unity. From creating personal archives to sharing food and ideas, the evening was all about community and belonging.
There were several workshops led by members of the Collective, each offering a unique way to explore creativity and connection. Trash and Treasure invited visitors to reflect and release their thoughts by writing them down and placing them into an ‘archival bin.’ Printing Personhood was a lino printing workshop where participants created their own stamp inspired by East London and printed onto local materials. In Places and Pages, people explored their voices through poetry, capturing memories, experiences, and moments of everyday life. Taste and Talk brought everyone together over food, encouraging conversation and idea sharing, with dishes served by OITIJ-JO Kitchen and Blasian’d Kitchen. Finally, Destination East was an immersive installation that offered a glimpse into the city through the Collective’s eyes, the audio co-curated by Heba Tabidi, with a bus stop structure designed by the Collective and built by local studio Are You Mad.
The evening was lively and full of warmth. Over 500 people attended, including collaborators, friends, family, and members of the public. The Storehouse was buzzing with energy, the food queues were long, the workshops packed, and the atmosphere vibrant. The mix of South Asian, South- East Asian and Caribbean flavours of food reflected the diversity of East London beautifully. Inside, the immersive installation filled the gallery with sounds and visuals from the Collective’s everyday lives, leaving visitors in awe.
In a city that’s always rushing, we reminded ourselves that we can pause, come together, and connect even just for one evening. As the night ended, we said goodbye not only to the public but also to each other. The V&A East staff Learning and Engagement team and the Collective reflected on the past 10 months. How much we’d learned, the friendships we’d formed, and the community we’d built.
As an East London local and a trainee, this experience showed me that even within large institutions, there’s space to find belonging and friendship where you least expect it. We all belong somewhere and for me, that place is East London.
Thank you to the Youth Collective for shaping this journey, and to all our partners and collaborators: Karis Beaumont, José García Oliva, Lucía Barsegian, ArtVomit Studio, Heba Tabidi, Are You Mad, Timi Akindele-Ajani, Tania Bruguera and Dubmorphology. Working with such a passionate team over the past 10 months has been an absolute joy.
