The Future Starts Here — V&A, London
Review commissioned by the Art Fund as a winner of their Student Writing Competition, 2018
Tucked away in the vast Victoria and Albert Museum is a small space housing some big ideas. A collection of over 100 objects allows a glimpse into the future, our future. For while weaving through the four main sections of this exhibition — Self, Public, Planet and Afterlife — it becomes clear that the future is malleable, that the decisions, actions and technologies of today will mould tomorrow’s world.
The first interactive exhibit is an emotive laundry-folding robot failing miserably at a task routine for humans, as if to establish that, although you might be about to engage with cutting-edge technologies, these are a supplement to the human experience. It is easy to be awed, however; we could potentially repopulate the planet with extinct species, envision a Martian home, and redefine life itself with genetic editing and a digital avatar that lives on after we die.
Undoubtedly incredible and thought-provoking as these ideas are, we’re also reminded that humans have long deliberated such grand questions. Each section of the exhibition brilliantly displays a related relic, such as a key carved into a ring from 300–400 AD (wearable tech!) or a celestial globe mapping the positions of stars from 1627.
The most impressive exhibits, however, are the ones aimed at helping people lead better lives, such as cochlear implants to properly experience music — and more than this, helping all people lead good lives: 3D printing for use in conflict zones, for example, or sturdy flat-pack temporary shelters for displaced communities.
The final section, ‘The Future Is…’, prompts reflection on the exhibition. And I think the future is one where nobody gets left behind.
This exhibition ended on 4November 2018.
This review was originally published on the Art Fund website: https://www.artfund.org/whats-on/more-to-see-and-do/features/review-the-future-starts-here-va-london
