Opening in 2024, V&A East Storehouse will revolutionise access to the V&A’s collection. We will invite visitors on a behind-the-scenes tour where they will encounter a wide variety of objects through changing displays, see the range of activity ongoing in the museum every day and enjoy a dynamic public programme. As part of the development of this exciting new visitor experience, we are currently working on the object displays that will make up the self-guided visitor route. We will be co-producing several displays with our local communities and in autumn 2021 we started our first co-production project, in collaboration with School 21 and Blackhorse Workshop.
School 21 in Stratford is a school for 4 – 18-year-olds and ten students have been working with the V&A East team to develop one of the displays for the V&A East Storehouse as part of their Real-World Learning Programme. This programme provides work experience opportunities for students, who spend half a day a week in a workplace over four months, and are tasked with solving an authentic problem for the organisation.
The group began working with us at the beginning of October 2021 and the project finished on the 8 February 2022. In part 1 of this blog post we shared some photographs of the ten young people, who were asked by the V&A East team to create an object that responds to the vast array of chairs in the Furniture collection at the V&A. This post shows some images from the second half of this project and the final output made by the group.
Metal Workshop
Having developed the design of their chair in the autumn, the group then began making the final chair in January. The group had decided that the base of their chair would be made from metal and would have wheels to allow the chair to easily be moved around. Before the group could begin making this part of the chair, they had an induction to the metal workshop at Blackhorse Road. This included a health and safety briefing, and the chance to try out a range of tools in the workshop to cut, drill, and sand metal.
Scaling down the chair
In the autumn the group made a model of their chair out of cardboard and used this to develop the different design elements. The final chair will be displayed alongside chairs from the collection at the V&A East Storehouse when we open in 2024, which the group have selected. For the chair to fit the display space the group decided to make a scaled down version of their model. Making a smaller version of the final product also gave the group more time to work on each element of the design.
Creating the fabric
The group decided that they wanted their chair to be upholstered and that they would design the fabric that they would use. During workshops to develop the chair design, the group decided that the chair would be decorated with logos from social justice movements that they feel strongly about and are important issues to them today. By doing so they hope that the importance of these movements will be highlighted to visitors when the chair goes on display at the V&A East Storehouse, and that visitors might seek to find out more about the movements represented and be empowered to fight for change.
The group used the logos of social justice movements, as well as creating their own, and then used screen printing to print them onto the fabric. The group chose white velvet as the base fabric to provide a blank canvas to print on, and to make the chair soft and comfortable to sit on.
Each layer of colour was printed one at a time, so that the colours could be built up across the fabric. The whole group worked together to print the fabric.
The fabric design includes the Black Lives Matter logo and the symbol of the feminist movement, and different colours were used for each part of the chair.
Making the final chair
The main body of the chair is made of plywood, and the group worked together to create the different components using a variety of tools and equipment. Katharine Daish is a maker at Blackhorse Workshop and led the group through each stage of the making process.
Yasmin and Lucas work on different sections of the chair.
Katharine and Lucas work on the back of the chair, bending the form into shape.
Abdul took the lead on making the metal frame for the chair. Once the shape was completed, he and Mubarik then spray painted the frame to complete the base.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The chair is intended for 16 – 35 year olds to work in at a desk and a key priority was that the chair had to be very comfortable to sit in. Here Mubarik cuts out the seat from several layers of memory foam.
Daria took the lead on cutting and preparing the fabric once it was printed. Here she cuts out one of the pieces using a template.
She then sewed the panels, ready for covering the chair frame and memory foam.
Here Abdul attaches the metal frame to the base of the chair.
The chair is designed to slot together so that it is easy to assemble and can be adapted for each user. Here the group work hard to bring all of the components of the chair together.
Lucas attaches the arm rests to the main body of the chair.
The chair is finished!
The chair will go on display at V&A East Storehouse when we open in 2024, alongside a selection of chairs from the V&A’s collection that the group selected and were inspired by.
With thanks to Katharine Daish and Blackhorse Workshop for supporting and facilitating this project.
