Your Childhood at V&A
If you’re in London and looking for a way to ‘awaken your inner child’, the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green is the surest way to do it. Located in an airy, bright hall originally built for the Great Exhibition of 1855 and once part of the V&A Museum in South Kensington, the Museum of Childhood has an eclectic and delightful collection, bound to excite and inspire children both young and old.
Artefacts of childhoods recent and long-past are lovingly preserved in display cases. Within the permanent collection visitors can find treasures as varied as a doll from Ancient Egypt (1300 BC); a dollhouse from Restoration England; a complete Baroque puppet theatre; an unopened 1923 Christmas cracker (containing 6 different novelty caps, according to its advertisement); and a patchwork World War II party dress creatively made from scarps of material by its owner’s mother during wartime rationing. But be warned, you are just as likely to confront objects from your own childhood as from history, provoking all sorts of nostalgic memories. It is strangely reassuring to find your own treasures carefully labelled and artfully arranged in a museum, making you feel as if someone else cares as much about preserving your memories as you do.
In the middle of the first floor exhibit sits Sarah Raphael’s ‘The Childhood Cube’ (2000), a bright community art project created by Raphael and students from several schools. The cube is made up of 216 miniature rooms housing all sorts of mad-cap scenes and highlighted by dramatic optic fibre lighting. The effect is joyful and whimsical chaos, just as we would like to remember childhood. Mermaids lounge on sofas, the solar system hangs over black and white bathroom tiles and stairways shoot out in every possible direction.
However, the most disarming and affecting objects are currently to be found in the front room, where local community groups have been creating their own museum; exploring what it means to treasure something, what objects we treasure and why. Personal photos and objects are proudly presented: sometimes with accompanying quotes and stories, other times left enigmatically unexplained, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions. Appealing to your inner voyeur, the display gives the impression of rustling nosily through someone’s open drawers whilst they are in the other room fixing tea.
Best of all, you can enjoy the permanent collection and the exhibitions entirely free of charge. All in all, a great way to treat yourself and your inner child to some quality time together.
