Our work

Research projects

Current project

Future Ecologies of Clay

Future Ecologies of Clay addresses the challenges of UK museums in collecting ephemeral, live, performative, site-specific and participatory works in clay. The project seeks to ensure that artworks in the ‘expanded field of clay’ can be identified, explored and analysed in the future.

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Current project

Early Career Fellowships in Cultural and Heritage Institutions

Generously supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), eight early career research fellows are undertaking research projects, each hosted by an Independent Research Organisation (IRO). The V&A is acting as the Cohort Coordination and Development team for this fellowship scheme.

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Current project

Provenance Research at the V&A

The V&A is actively engaged in provenance research. We continually seek to learn more about the origins of objects, books and archives in our care, and to share this knowledge openly and transparently. We are particularly committed to examining colonial and Nazi-era provenance in our collections.

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See our research projects

Research outputs

Online

Unearthed

‘Unearthed’ is a poetry film by Amina Jama. It responds to items in the V&A’s archive showcasing stereotypical depictions of people of colour throughout time.

More info

Online

Chinese Iconography Thesaurus

The Chinese Iconography Thesaurus combines sinology, art history and information studies to create the first thesaurus of Chinese iconography, a valuable research tool enhancing the accessibility and understanding of Chinese art. The CIT was launched with a grant from DCMS and subsequent sponsorship from the Bei Shan Tang Foundation.

More info

Online

Mapping Glastonbury

The V&A is home to the Glastonbury Festival Archive, an extraordinary collection of objects, sounds, sights and memories that encapsulate Glastonbury Festival. To open up the archive and bring it to life, we have collaborated with digital agency We Are Freak to develop a fully immersive and interactive map of the Festival.

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See our research outputs

Academic programmes

Over the past 40 years, the V&A has been sector-leading in the development of museum-delivered postgraduate education, by establishing, with the Royal College of Art, the world’s first MA and PhD programme in the History of Design in 1982.

Read more about about our programmes.

Open access publishing

The V&A/UCL Press titles aim to share new, high-quality research relating to the V&A’s collections and practices, and to ensure that this research reaches as wide a global readership as possible through open access. While the research draws directly on V&A projects, each V&A/UCL Press title offers a critical reflection on issues of wider relevance to the cultural and heritage sector and to academic disciplines ranging from art history to museum studies to education.

See our books here.

Highlights

Find out more about upcoming V&A Research Institute events and outputs

Bibliomigrancy amongst the Ruins: post-1945 Book Movement // 16-17 April (online and in-person)

This two-day conference will showcase active research from librarians, historians and researchers that unearths new understanding of how books moved around Europe after a war that had disrupted and scattered the book stock of an entire continent. We will hear how, from a moment of continental catastrophe, creative and distributive systems were resurrected, rebuilt and created at a vast scale, including case studies of holdings in major research libraries of Norway, Poland, Germany, Canada and the UK. (Image credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park)

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Tatreez: Palestinian Embroidery Display // V&A South Kensington

Tatreez is the Arabic word for the elaborate hand embroidery found on Palestinian dress. Renowned for its beauty and complexity, tatreez is characterised by remarkable regional diversity. This display brings together examples of historic Palestinian dress from the V&A collection — representing the regions of Ramallah, Bethlehem and the Southern Coast — alongside contemporary embroidered work by fashion designer Zeid Hijazi and artist Aya Haidar.

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V&A and Bunnett-Muir Musical Theatre Archive Trust award their first Musical Theatre Fellows and Grant Recipients

The V&A and Bunnett-Muir Musical Theatre Archive Trust (BMT) are delighted to announce the first cohort of Musical Theatre Fellows and Grant Recipients. Generously funded by the Bunnett-Muir Musical Theatre Archive Trust, the fellowships and grants provide the opportunity to undertake research in the field of the musical on stage and screen with the Bunnett-Muir Musical Theatre Archive and the V&A’s Theatre and Performance Collections.

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New Publication: Simona Valeriani, The Royal Albert Hall

Simona Valeriani’s book tells the fascinating story of how The Royal Albert Hall, one of the most iconic buildings of the Victorian era, came into being. Bringing material and archival evidence to life, it gives voice to its makers: from artisans and engineers to royalty and policy makers. The Royal Albert Hall reveals itself as a gateway to a new understanding of the political, artistic and scientific aspirations of a generation whose legacy still shapes today’s social and cultural landscape.

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Our research journal

The V&A Research Journal is now available again – and we plan new issues in the forthcoming months.

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'Unearthed: An Interview with the Archive' by Amina Jama

‘Unearthed’ is a poetry film by Amina Jama. It responds to the V&A’s archive showcasing stereotypical depictions of people of colour throughout time.

Learn more