from Tristram Hunt, Director, Victoria & Albert Museum

Thu, 1 Apr

Dear Professor Griffiths,

Thank you for emailing me the statement issued by the President and yourself, as Acting Chair, of the Society for Theatre Research in connection with the proposed restructure of curatorial responsibilities at the V&A and the future of the Theatre and Performance Department.

Due to the impact of COVID-19, the V&A’s income has endured a catastrophic collapse. In the financial year 2020-21, we received less than 10% of our projected visitors; in the coming year we project barely 25% of our pre-pandemic numbers. For a museum which relies heavily upon self-generated income for such a substantial part of its funding, this has resulted in a £10 million p.a. structural deficit and has inevitably led to major savings needing to be implemented across the organisation, at every level.

Despite support from Government, we have had to make a wide number of changes, including reducing the V&A’s opening hours to five days a week; reducing our teams of gallery assistants and retail staff by 40%; radically reducing our acquisitions budget; postponing major redevelopments and exhibitions; cutting the size of the Executive Board; and, sadly, looking to reduce headcount in our Collections Division.

The proposals we initially developed were put together with a great deal of thought and aimed to retain all the material specialisms of the V&A whilst delivering the necessary 20% saving to the Collections Division.  This involved the creation of three new chrono-thematic departments which sought to promote new forms of collaborative working, whilst underpinning object-based knowledge, and also creating three extra posts focused on growing Africa and Africa-diaspora collections.  We also wanted to ensure our curators were focused on the opportunities available as part of our multi-site future with museums in South Kensington, Bethnal Green, Stratford, Dundee, Stoke-on-Trent and elsewhere, and the different ways of working promised by the creation of a new Collection & Research Centre in east London, following the aftermath of our exit from our long-term storage facilities at Blythe House.

The staff consultation period allowed us to listen to the voices of colleagues within the museum, as well as other supporters and collaborators of the V&A. Having reflected upon that feedback, we have now returned with an updated proposal which consolidates the V&A’s unique material specialisms into three new departments alongside a department dedicated to Asia.  Regrettably, we will still have to make the same number of redundancies (with as many as possible achieved through voluntary options), but we hope that this new plan will deliver a curatorial structure and vision that maintains both the V&A’s material-based ethos and delivers on my ambition to connect more effectively with the audiences of tomorrow, with their expressed interest in the historical provenance and broader cultural context of collections.

Theatre & Performance remains one the V&A’s most important and much-loved collections. However, as a result of the changes and savings we need to make, Theatre & Performance can no longer function as a stand-alone department. To safeguard its unique place at the V&A, the updated plans propose that Theatre and Performance come together with Furniture and Fashion in a new department which draws on long-standing intersections between these areas, and will hopefully create some particularly interesting collaborations around, for example, stage and furniture, costume and fashion.

I also want to emphasise that the Theatre & Performance collection will always be one of the V&A’s key national collections. Our superb Theatre & Performance Galleries and display space in South Kensington remain very much open. We will continue to explore opportunities around music, theatre and performance programming and exhibitions for the future.

The Theatre & Performance Archives will form part of the move to the Collection & Research Centre at V&A East – with the huge benefit of being accessible by many more researchers, students, and interested members of the public, supported by dedicated staff, than is currently possible at Blythe House.  The role of Theatre & Performance and its peerless archival collection within the V&A is a source of enormous pride and curatorial excellence across the museum and I fully appreciate my duty in caring for this tangible and intangible heritage, which is such an important component of our nation’s creative patrimony.

As with previous proposals, the final structure will be confirmed once the consultation has completed and all feedback has been reviewed, but I do hope that this update addresses some of your questions and concerns.

We will now work with staff over the coming weeks to ensure that their suggestions and responses are heard in the next and final stage of this unfortunate but necessary programme of retrenchment and reform.

Best wishes,

Tristram

Dr Tristram Hunt

Director, Victoria and Albert Museum

Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL