Storage is everywhere, yet it rarely registers in our everyday consciousness. Most storage spaces are behind closed doors, inaccessible to the public, or not conventionally classified as such.
On Storage presents a view of the world as a massively interwoven and complex series of storage architectures, designed to accommodate an ever-increasing quantity of stuff produced. The film at the centre of On Storage is a meditation on the role storage plays in all our lives: from the vast networks of global logistics that move goods and products around, to the way we acquire, collect and store objects within our homes, or carry them with us when we travel. Directed by DS+R, this newly commissioned six-channel film entitled Boxed: The Mild Boredom of Order was created in anticipation of the public opening of V&A East Storehouse in London on 31 May 2025. The film follows an everyday consumer product, a toothbrush, on its journey through various forms of storage across the globe. Using documentary film shot on location from the massive scale of a fulfilment warehouse to the compact space within a suitcase, we experience the storage and circulation of goods at a personal level; from work of distribution centre employees and baggage handlers to the process of packing possessions for a trip overseas – heightening our awareness of the spaces and places that goods and the people that move them inhabit.
On Storage is presented by La Biennale di Venezia and the V&A as the special project for the Applied Arts Pavilion at Biennale Architettura 2025. Curated by Brendan Cormier, Chief Curator of V&A East, in collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
