We’re thrilled to be able to take applications for Young V&A’s first onsite Studio Designer. This six-month placement will be based in The Shed, a dedicated space integrated into Young V&A’s Design Gallery, and is a unique opportunity for our visitors to gain insight into the world of a practicing designer. This visible presence will bring the Design Gallery to life, highlighting the role of a designer with a busy and active design studio.
We would like to hear from designers with a playfully investigative, or collaborative, practice and experience of actively engaging with young audiences. We are interested in designers or design collectives that would like to develop their practice through exploring accessible, inclusive, and sustainable design processes. We’re looking for a playful approach to engaging children and young people, someone who’s socially engaged, local to the museum, and have experience working with East London communities.
This invitation coincides with an important moment in our history. Young V&A will be a free national museum with permanent galleries that showcase the power of design and creativity. Sparking the imaginations of 0 – 14-year-olds and their families by building creative confidence and skills through play, imagination, and design. This transformation is almost complete, with Young V&A throwing open its doors this summer on 1 July 2023.
We invite our ‘Shed’ designer to access, and be inspired by, the Design Gallery’s objects – selected from the V&A’s wider collection. The gallery explores material and manufacturing processes, design as a catalyst for change, and the idea of usefulness and user-centred design.
The placement is for six months, from June to December 2023, with a two-day a week commitment and time within this to actively engage with Young V&A’s visitors. The successful designer will benefit from support from our Learning Team and curators, as well as wider opportunities with the V&A.
Young V&A will provide an £8,000 bursary and a studio space at the Bethnal Green site. Applicants should be early- to mid-career and be an individual designer or a design collective. If you have a playfully investigative approach to design and experience of engaging young people creatively, please apply by 1 May 2023.
You can access the full open call here.
