Simon Stephens interviews V&A Director Tristram Hunt aboutcancel culture, problematic sponsorship and why he thinks the museum's collection can't be decolonised.
With the Labour party securing a landslide victory in the recent election, Tristram Hunt could well be thinking how his life would have turned out had he not decided to resign as an MP and become the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in January 2017.
A number of push and pull factors informed his decision to abandon his political career for the cultural sector.
“On the push side, I wasn’t a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, and I couldn’t tell my constituents that he should be prime minister,” Hunt says.
“And then my constituency, Stoke-on-Trent Central, had voted 70/30 for Brexit, and I thought Brexit was a terrible idea. No one wants to vote for someone who thinks you’ve made a terrible mistake, so I felt like the clock was ticking.” ... Keep reading on Museum Association.
With the Labour party securing a landslide victory in the recent election, Tristram Hunt could well be thinking how his life would have turned out had he not decided to resign as an MP and become the director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in January 2017.
A number of push and pull factors informed his decision to abandon his political career for the cultural sector.
“On the push side, I wasn’t a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, and I couldn’t tell my constituents that he should be prime minister,” Hunt says.
“And then my constituency, Stoke-on-Trent Central, had voted 70/30 for Brexit, and I thought Brexit was a terrible idea. No one wants to vote for someone who thinks you’ve made a terrible mistake, so I felt like the clock was ticking.” ... Keep reading on Museum Association.