V&A East offers an important opportunity: the Design Trust Fellowship, a one-year programme that awards a creative professional funding to conduct research at the V&A East Storehouse, fieldwork in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and China, where appropriate, and to produce a new creative work, which will be exhibited at V&A East for a six-month season. The inaugural V&A East Design Trust Fellowship will begin in autumn 2025, culminating in a commissioned work on display in autumn 2026 through spring 2027.
Practitioners are asked to respond to the theme the Stories of Clothes, with a research focus relating to Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and China.
We are interested in projects rooted in object-based research which explore the meaning of clothes, questioning what our clothing reveals about us from the complex and intricate relationship we have with our own bodies to the ways in which their design, production and disposal shape our world.
Inspired by Saidiya Hartman’s methodology of approaching archives, we are interested in how ‘counter-narratives that recover the insurgent ground of human lives’ can be found though fieldwork within and beyond the museum.
Rooted in research, the final creative output could be in any media but practitioners are asked to consider the suitability of their project for a six-month installation in a public building. Please note that the production costs for the output are included in the fee.
The successful candidate will receive $275,000 HKD to fund their time, travel expenses, accommodation and production costs of a new work to be installed at V&A East. Fellows can be based anywhere around the world, but we would expect at least three weeks of research to take place at V&A East Storehouse.
Submission & selection
This open call runs from July 3 until midnight on Friday August 22, 2025. Applicants are asked to submit in English: a research plan and conceptual proposal for a new work to be displayed at V&A East (no more than 500 words and up to five images); a budget of how they would allocate 275,000 HKD; and a CV (no more than 500 words).
Applications will be reviewed collectively by members of the V&A East team and Design Trust team. The team may choose to shortlist a small group of applicants and conduct interviews. The finalist will be determined by September at the latest.
Please send your submissions by Friday August 22, 2025 to designtrustfellowship@vam.ac.uk.
Fellowship timeline
September 2025: Fellow appointed / October to December 2025: Research phase / January to March 2026: Concept Development / April to September 2026: Production and installation of new work / October 2026 to March 2027: Commission Display.
More about V&A East
V&A East comprises of two new sister sites in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. V&A East Storehouse is your access all areas experience of the V&A collection. Go behind the scenes and take your own path through the worlds of art, design, performance, fashion and more. With galleries, exhibitions and events spotlighting the people, ideas and creativity shaping global culture right now, V&A East Museum is your place to meet, find inspiration and fresh ideas. Opening in east London, spring 2026.
More about Design Trust
Design Trust was established in 2014 by Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design, a registered charity in Hong Kong since 2007, as a grant funding and community platform. Design Trust supports creative projects that develop expertise, build research initiatives and content related to Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. Working across a multiplicity of design disciplines from graphics, media, architecture to the built environment, Design Trust aims to actively accelerate creative research, design and development of meaningful projects that advocate for the positive role of design.
Design Trust Fellowship 2025
