Sahra Hersi Selects

Curated by east London-based artist and designer Sahra Hersi, this display brings together V&A collection objects and Hersi's personal archive to reflect on her practice and journey into making.

Hersi reflects on her early introduction to spatial design, learning through small-world play, and the path this set towards her public realm installations such as Civic Carpet – Ilford Forever (2023). 

This display celebrates the creative synergies between Hersi and makers from past and present, and the key principles of her community-rooted practice.

Objects on display span time, media and geographies; from a collection of ancient Greek building fragments to a 1960s dollhouse, and from the radical feminist poster design of See Red Women's Workshop to Jos Pottery from Nigeria.

Each year, X Selects invites two creative practitioners (artists, designers, collectives) to delve into the V&A’s collections and develop their own capsule display in the Why We Make galleries at V&A East Museum. The inaugural displays respond to the V&A East season theme of ‘Making East London.’