I was at a dinner party in Mayfair last week when the conversation inevitably turned to the V&A East Storehouse. The museum’s new Stratford facility had just opened its doors, boasting a radical, progressive mandate: anyone, from any walk of life, could book an appointment to order historical artifacts from the archives and physically touch them. No glass cases, no velvet ropes. You could simply walk in off the street, request to handle a David Bowie guitar or an original Beatrix Potter manuscript, and the staff would bring it to you on a foam mat.
At first, I was captivated. I immediately booked a Tuesday afternoon slot, envisioning a profound, solitary afternoon communing with the ghosts of cultural titans. It was supposed to be a small joy, a quiet ritual of aesthetic appreciation reserved for those of us who truly understand the vibrational weight of the archive. I took a car to Stratford, braving the aesthetic bleakness of the Olympic Park, ready to let the raw texture of history change me.
Upon arriving at the sprawling, brutalist storage facility, I was escorted to the viewing tables. My first request was a series of Beatrix Potter’s original watercolours. When the archivist placed the delicate 19th-century paper into my hands, the connection was electric. I could feel Potter’s own quiet rebellion in the brushstrokes, her fierce independence manifesting in the pigment of Peter Rabbit’s jacket. I sat there for twenty minutes, letting the genius of the past wash over me, secure in the knowledge that I was participating in the highest form of artistic communion.
And then, I looked to my left.
Sitting at the adjacent table was a family of four from Essex. The father, wearing a branded fleece quarter-zip, was casually holding a 1920s Bauhaus teapot while his teenage son absentmindedly scrolled through his phone. A few tables down, a woman in sensible walking shoes was running her bare thumbs over an Alexander McQueen bodice as if checking a melon for ripeness at the farmers’ market. I immediately got the ick.
There is something deeply unsettling about watching a completely ordinary person handle a priceless artifact without an ounce of existential dread. We romanticize the idea of open access, but we fail to consider the spiritual toll it takes on the objects themselves.
Our mission is to remove the elitist barriers of the traditional museum and let the local community feel the literal weight of history in their own hands.
I listened to Julian say this while I watched a man who looked like an assistant regional manager for a logistics firm handle a 17th-century Japanese lacquer box. Julian’s words were spoken with the bright, hollow optimism of a hostage negotiating their own surrender. He was smiling, but his eyes screamed of a man who had been forced by a diversity committee to hand over the crown jewels to people who use 2-in-1 shampoo.
The true horror set in when my second requested item arrived: David Bowie’s acoustic guitar. This was an instrument that had channeled the very essence of Ziggy Stardust, a piece of wood and wire that had absorbed the sweat and cosmic anguish of a generational icon. I reached out to touch the fretboard, expecting a jolt of creative lightning.
Instead, the wood felt distinctly lukewarm. I pressed my fingers against the strings, trying to summon the opening chords of 'Space Oddity,' but all I could sense was the lingering, stagnant aura of a dental hygienist who had presumably booked the guitar an hour before me. The magic was gone. The instrument had been stripped of its mystique, reduced to a communal prop by the relentless friction of the middle class.
This is the problem with treating high culture like a public utility. When you allow anyone to touch genius, the genius inevitably rubs off, replaced by the mundane oils of the general public. It’s the same tragic trajectory we saw when that exclusive wellness retreat in Costa Rica started accepting walk-ins; suddenly, the ayahuasca ceremonies were crowded with accountants talking about their mortgages, and the spiritual vortex simply collapsed under the weight of their banality.
We have convinced ourselves that gatekeeping is a dirty word, a relic of a less enlightened age. But some gates exist for a reason. They exist to protect the sacred from the casual.
We actually just ask that visitors wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water before their appointment, and maybe take off any sharp rings to avoid scratching the finishes.
Soap is not enough, Sarah. You cannot wash away a fundamental lack of cultural capital with antibacterial foam. You cannot sanitize the sheer mediocrity of a tourist who only requested the Bowie guitar because they saw a viral TikTok about it on the Tube ride over.
I am not saying that the working classes should be entirely barred from the archives. I am simply proposing a modest threshold for entry. Perhaps a brief interview to gauge the applicant's curatorial soul. A short essay on the socio-political implications of the object in question. Or, at the very least, a minimum net worth requirement to ensure that the person holding a priceless artifact has something of equal value to lose if they drop it.
Until the V&A implements some form of aesthetic vetting, I cannot in good conscience return to the Storehouse. I refuse to share my moments of transcendent beauty with people who treat the archives of human achievement like a petting zoo. The next time I wish to commune with David Bowie, I will simply have to do it the old-fashioned way: by purchasing one of his former homes and refusing to let anyone else inside.