Assembly Speaker - 26 September
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, British curator, cultural historian, broadcaster and lecturer, Director of V&A East
On Monday we were joined by speaker Gus Casely-Hayford, who spoke about his diverse and interesting career path to date.
He began by talking about a major turning point early on in his education, when he failed his O Levels. He spoke about dealing with disappointment at a young age and the hard but necessary decision to ‘dust himself off’ and re-take his exams. Being resilient in the face of adversity was one of the key messages he put across to the students; how he has had to overcome failure more than once in his life and how he has used failure as a driver to succeed.
He attended Art college but quickly realised that being a practising artist was not the right direction for him. He followed an academic path and went on to gain a phD degree in African History from SOAS. His illustrious career has included presenting award winning television shows on African arts and culture, being executive director of arts strategy for the Arts Council and leading the British Museum’s diversity programme.
He spent two years in America as the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, returning to the UK to take on the task of setting up ‘V&A East’. He is currently leading the project to build and launch two sister sites in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London: a five-storey museum at Stratford waterfront and a four-storey collection and research centre at Here East.
He said that his greatest wish was to make the arts more inclusive, for major institutions to attract a broad and diverse audience, reflective of the society that we live in. He finished his talk by emphasising how important it was to have creative minds in every sector of the work force, leading the way for innovative ideas and practices.
It was a pleasure to listen to such an inspirational speaker and many students stayed behind to chat with him after the talk. We look forward to visiting V&A East with our future students.
Ms Londhe - Head of Year 12
