This month, the V&A celebrates 150 years at its Bethnal Green site.
Formally the V&A Museum of Childhood, it opened in 1872, becoming East London’s first ever museum. After re branding as Young V&A in 2021, the museum kicks off the countdown to its opening in summer 2023. Following its major redevelopment into a new national museum, Young V&A’s aims to be a creative powerhouse dedicated to 0 to 14-year-olds.
To mark the moment while construction continues, Young V&A is taking its creative programme into the community throughout its birthday year with the launch of the Reinvent Festival – its most ambitious festival to-date.
Young V&A’s Reinvent Festival offers a series of family friendly events, activities and pop-ups in partnership with venues across east London from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s Great Get Together to Victoria Park’s All Points East In The Neighbourhood and Idea Stores across Tower Hamlets.
Dr Helen Charman, Director of Young V&A, said: ‘For 150 years, the V&A has been embedded in its local community, and we can’t wait to open Young V&A in Summer 2023 as a new museum that puts children and their creative futures front and centre’.