V&A Portals

Recent GMD graduate, Timothy Yufit, is one of fifteen young people selected to take part in a new immersive design programme at the V&A, ‘Portals’. Timothy is excited to be working with the museum collections and the opportunity to create an interactive experience about one of the artefacts, which will be presented at a V&A public showcase, 25-27 April 2026.

I’ve been going to the museum and spending hours looking at objects from across different historical periods. From the early Roman Empire to late nineteenth-century England. It’s been fascinating to approach the collection not as a typical museum visitor, but as a designer searching for a conceptual starting point. Each object carries its own tone and reflects the time in which it was made.

I found myself particularly drawn to common, domestic artefacts that are still part of everyday life today. Things like spoons, chairs, tables, clothing, and doors. They reveal so much about society, religion, and political structures of their era while remaining functionally familiar.

One door especially caught my attention. Made in Nuremberg in the early 1400s, it bears the coats of arms of the Holy Roman Emperor (the eagle), the King of Bohemia (the lion), and the city of Nuremberg (the half eagle). Its surface reflects the political alignment of that moment.

What’s striking is that within a few years, Bohemia descended into civil unrest, and the relationships between these powers deteriorated dramatically, eventually leading to the big conflict – the Hussite Wars, in the early fifteenth century. The door feels like a silent marker of stability just before fracture – a material threshold between order and upheaval.

Since the project just started, there are a lot of directions where this project could lead, but so far, that’s my starting point.”

We will be following up on the results of Timothy’s project. Watch this space.

Timothy’s website: https://timothyufit.cargo.site
Instagram: @_yufit_0 and @ti_yufit
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-yufit-b628472b8