Across March and April, Young V&A kicked off Festival season with I AM Festival and Our Voice, Our Future: A Festival of Childhood.
I AM Festival
On Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 March, I AM Festival, organised in collaboration with A New Direction, brought deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent young people together at Young V&A to empower, celebrate and explore their creativity.
Celebrating a decade of amplifying young voices, the I AM Festival returned for 2025 with a theme of ‘Make Some Noise’, bringing creative expression to young children across London. Since 2015, award-winning London based charity A New Direction has provided a platform for thousands of young children to showcase their talents, leadership, ideas and opinions.
This year marked a 10-year milestone for the festival, taking place during Neurodiversity Celebration Week and ahead of V&A’s landmark exhibition Design and Disability opening on 7 June which will further showcase the contributions of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent designers to contemporary culture.
The whole of Young V&A was activated for the two-day festival with highlights including a sensory disco, music and art workshops and a parade. Our aim is to facilitate and nurture lasting relationships between schools and disabled artists and disability-led organisations, creating opportunities for collaboration and growth and building on the partnership activity between V&A South Kensington and I AM in former years and enduring commitment to inclusive creative education across V&A Learning.
Find out more about the full day here: I Am Festival 2025 | A New Direction
Our Voice, Our Future: A Festival of Childhood
Young V&A was both delighted and privileged to host the Children Commissioner’s inaugural Festival of Childhood on 3 April. Since opening in July 2023, to a brief set by children to be ‘the world’s most joyful museum’, Young V&A has celebrated the role of creativity and play from early years onwards, as vital ingredients for a flourishing childhood and in strong alignment with the Children’s Commission. The Festival marked the beginning of Dame Rachel de Souza’s penultimate year as Children’s Commissioner and brought young people together with politicians and decision makers to prioritise the joy and importance of childhood, discuss the most important issues in children’s lives, and shine a light on why having their voices reflected in policy making is so important.
The Children’s Commissioner was joined by young delegates aged 14-18 for a full day of panel sessions, workshops and creative activities, in addition to activations across the entire museum. The Festival opened with keynote speeches from The Right Honourable Bridget Phillipson MP – Secretary of State for Education, Dr Tristram Hunt – Director V&A, Hughie Higginson, a Sky FYI young reporter and of course Dame Rachel.
Young delegates representing organisations such as the Scouts, London Wildlife Trust and the Duke of Edinburgh Award, alongside the Commissioner’s SEND Panel and 33 Young Ambassadors then took part in panel discussions and workshops to discuss the most pressing issues in their lives. The first panel, “Building the Foundations”, was chaired by myself with panellists including Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell Boyce, early years educator and author Jamel C. Campbell, and Artistic Director of Unicorn Theatre Rachel Bagshaw, to reflect on the importance of instilling creative confidence in the early years as a foundation for childhood and later life. The second panel, “Facing the Future”, was chaired by the Children’s Commissioner, with panellists Chief Scout Dwayne Fields, housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa, and TV personality Phoenix Brown, focusing on the challenges that young people experience as they enter their teenage years and how to build the resilience and confidence they need.
The festival continued with an afternoon of creative workshops ran by the Young V&A Learning & Engagement and Children’s Commissioners teams, alongside Youth-led Movement My Life, My Say. Young V&A led ‘Imagining Creative Futures’ workshop invited festival participants to prototype ideas for spaces and places that support children and young people to feel creative, and where they can share ideas through creativity; the Children’s Commission led workshop asked young people what ‘good practice’ to ensure that England is the best place to be a child looked like from a young person’s perspective; and the My Life, My Say led Democracy Café encouraged young people’s access to democracy and ability to discuss social issues important to them.
Running parallel, performances and gallery activations across the museum gave young people the agency to express their creative skills. Frank Cottrell-Boyce, current Waterstones Children’s Laureate held a book reading session for Bangabandhu Primary School in The Stage; A drop-in workshop in the Design Gallery’s Open Studio gave young people the opportunity to design risograph patterns and slogans on badges that celebrate childhood and creativity, and Walthamstow School for Girls closed out the day with a bellowing performance from their steel pan band.
The Children’s Commissioner spoke passionately in her speech about how children are facing a ‘crisis in childhood’, with many turning to the online world for answers as they feel increasingly ‘disconnected’ from society. It was therefore no better time for Young V&A to welcome a host of young people to the museum for the Festival of Childhood, giving their voices agency in exploring how to build the best possible childhood for all, in the overall context of Young V&A’s child-centred vision to develop creative confidence in the young.
Looking ahead, it won’t be long before we celebrate Young V&A’s 2nd birthday festival in July! With huge thanks to all the teams involved in animating the museum with such energy and commitment.
