One of the most affecting of the many artist commissions that have found a home in the circulation spaces of the new V&A East museum is an exquisite indigo, cobalt blue and cyan stained-glass window, Towards a Civic Museum.

Part of our series of New Work commissions, it was created by the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera in extended consultation with a dozen young east Londoners from our V&A East Youth Collective. It is an unusual piece of stained glass, at once a map of the four boroughs that bound our site on the Olympic Park and a list of wishes, a contract between east London and V&A East. Created in the post-pandemic period, it advances aspirations, something I imagine that all reasonable museum professionals would wish for our sector: that we are open, accessible, useful, relevant and engaged. That we care for and reflect the needs of the communities we serve. That we are transparent, encourage advocacy, demonstrate generosity, equity, accountability, sustainability and – critically – a willingness to collaborate.

When I first saw the work, I came away thinking that these are the right institutional aims, in spirit timely, but simultaneously timeless. The idea of wanting to make a meaningful difference to young people’s lives was a core aspiration of Henry Cole, the 19th-century founder of the V&A. But as Bruguera and her cohort of young consultants agreed, the somewhat patrician Victorian vision of how to achieve that no longer sits comfortably with what many want from museums. We want public institutions that inspire and reflect us, all of us; institutions that are not just made for us, but........

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