Photography: Nigel Shafran photographs unseen corners of the V&A for their Annual Review

Date
26 September 2013

You can spot some pretty interesting things if, when walking around a museum, you take your eye off the exhibits for a moment and instead focus on the environment they’re shown in. Sometimes even the Mona Lisa or Michelangelo’s David can pale next to the semi-audible chatter of camera-clad tourists and locals, glances between invigilators, shopkeepers, waiters in museum cafés, ticket sellers…

These are the aspects of London’s beautiful V&A museum that contemporary photographer Nigel Shafran captured for their Annual Review; see schoolboys caught off-guard wandering around hallways, sales assistants in the museum’s well-stocked shop busying themselves around the arrival of a new delivery, a historian restoring an antique in the basement and an invigilator caught in a daydream at her station. These “tenderly observed moments of human interaction” make for a pleasantly real overview of the role the V&A plays in London, welcoming as it does so many and such diverse crowds from all corners of the world. It also marks the last time you’ll try to go for a subtle nose-pick whilst hiding behind a medieval tapestry; you never known when Nigel might be lurking around the corner…

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The V&A: The Annual Review

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The V&A: The Annual Review

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The V&A: The Annual Review

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The V&A: The Annual Review

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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