V&A's Tim Reeve to speak at our 'Cultural Cities' discussion event this May

Image: Tim Reeve CBE - courtesy of the V&A Museum

Future Cities Forum is delighted that Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) Tim Reeve, CBE, will be speaking at our 'Cultural Cities' discussion forum, hosted by the Tower of London this May.

Taking a strategic and operational overview of all museum activities, Tim manages the divisions responsible for Resources (including the V&A's commercial activities), Exhibitions, Audiences, Capital Projects and Security. He also leads on the V&A's international strategy and is the V&A’s representative on the Board of V&A Dundee.

Since joining the V&A, Tim has led the development of V&A East Museum and Storehouse in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East London, as part of the East Bank cultural and educational legacy of the 2012 Olympics.

He chairs the East Bank Board tasked with delivering the shared vision of the Mayor of London, and the East Bank partners, over the long term.

Before joining the V&A, Tim was Director of Historic Properties at English Heritage, responsible for the management of the 420 historic properties which make up the National Heritage Collection, with a remit covering all aspects of the visitor experience, the long-term capital programme, and maintenance and conservation of the historic estate.

Tim is a graduate in Ancient History from Royal Holloway, University of London, and studied at the Institute of Archaeology (UCL) and INSEAD on its International Executive Programme. He has served as a trustee of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, the National Memorial Arboretum, Paintings in Hospitals, the Canal & River Trust and the Exhibition Road Cultural Group.

He was made CBE in The King’s Birthday Honours 2025 for service to museums, and was named a Blooloop ‘Power 10’ Museum Influencer in 2020, 2021 and 2025.

V&A East Museum, designed by architects, O'Donnell + Toumey opens on the 18th April this year. The museum has been co-curated with young people, creatives as well as those living, working and studying in east London. In a brand new five storey space, the museum is next to the East Bank Partners London College of Fashion / UAL, the BBC, Sadler's Wells East and UCL East. Supported by the Mayor of London, V&A East Museum is sister site to the critically acclaimed V&A East Storehouse which opened in May this year.

A monumental new work by Thomas J Price, 'A Place Beyond', will welcome visitors into V&A East Museum on opening. There will also be a landmark exhibition 'The Music is Black: A British Story', with a sound experience by Sennheiser. The exhibition spanning 1900 to the present day reveals how Black British music has shaped British culture - and its global impact - to tell a long overdue story of Black excellence, struggle, resilience and joy.

Future Cities Forum interviewed the Director of V&A East Gus Casely Hayford in 2021 about the vision for the museum. He said:

'With a newly designed space which is vast - the scale of a football field - we will have a glorious new museum when built: There will be multiple floors where visitors can stand to look up and look out and 26,000 objects to explore. Those who are interested can look at best practice from designers around the world. There will be a newly designed state of the art exhibition space where the narratives from our creative communities can find space and present the reactions to the objects from the local community.

'We will draw in marginalised audiences and provide a digital interface which will bring the collections to life. Visitors will be able to record their impressions and leave something of themselves behind. We will create another layer of integration of objects - a space within itself - to seek out and explore the latest debates around the objects.

'There will be facilities for courses and for training. We have set up a connection with The Bartlett / UCL and The London College of Fashion for training and people will be able use this wider partnership to further their own professional opportunities, creating a new community of artists and by so doing, bring back into our own collections.'

Gus concluded our discussion event by saying

'We don't want to be passive as a museum in East London but engage, whether it be through tertiary education or via the national curriculum through physical or the digital, enabling people to access jobs or enjoy the museum through handling the objects. In short, the objects are 'Yours' and in the spirit of our founder Henry Cole, it is there to 'Fulfil your dreams'. Some of the collection is 'contentious and difficult' and we are motivated to live up to the higher ideas of museology but we want to change the way people see our collections, now and in the future'.