V&A East director Gus Casely-Hayford explains how he plans for the new museum in east London to reach a more diverse audience in the final talk as part of our collaboration with Friedman Benda for VDF.

Due to open in 2023, V&A East will comprise a new museum outpost for the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as a new collection and research centre.

Both will be located at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which hosted the London 2012 Olympics and is situated on the boundary of several east London boroughs with large ethnic minority populations.

"This is one of the most diverse parts of London, but also an area that has given us some of the most talented artists in Britain," Casely-Hayford told curator Glenn Adamson in the last of New York gallery Friedman Benda's Design in Dialogue interviews that Dezeen is publishing as part of Virtual Design Festival.
"We want those people to feel like this isn't something that has landed from outer space. It's an institution that doesn't just welcome them, but it feels like it belongs to them ? that it reflects their loves and their interests and speaks to them in ways that aren't patronising."

The new five-storey museum, which is being designed by O'Donnell + Tuomey, will feature traditional exhibitions spaces as well as studio space for workshops and residencies.

"We want to have exhibitions but we want it to be a kind of exhibition interface that will speak to the local population," Casely-Hayford ...