Lunchtime Lecture: Curating the Songbook Trail - Taylor Swift and the V&A

Discover the creative process behind curating and designing the Taylor Swift | Songbook Trail, as Kate Bailey reveals how the V&A became the stage for thirteen installations celebrating the career of 14-time Grammy Award winning artist, Taylor Swift.  Each theatrical display included a selection of objects on loan from the artist, showcasing costumes, songwriting, and music videos in dialogue with the V&A collections and galleries. Kate Bailey will reveal how Taylor Swift’s eras and storytelling became a lens for engaging visitors with the permanent collections across the museum and explain how the chapters in the songbook from Red to reputation, Speak Now to Lover were presented at the museum in this unique V&A experience.

Kate Bailey is Senior Curator of Theatre and Performance at the V&A Museum. Kate has curated recent V&A exhibition blockbusters including DIVA (2023), Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser (2021) and Opera: Passion, Power and Politics (2017). Kate's exhibitions have toured internationally, and her portfolio of work in theatre and performance includes publications, talks, and a range of digital productions and museum experiences – including Curious Alice – a VR experience and the Taylor Swift | Songbook Trail -  a theatrical journey across the V&A, summer 2024.  Past V&A performance exhibitions include Glastonbury Land and Legend (2015); Russian Avant Garde (2014), Music Hall: Sickert and the Three Graces (2013); Space and Light: Edward Gordon Craig (2010), award-winning video installation Five Truths (2011), A Great Night Out (2004) and a range of displays of contemporary performance design and photography.