V&A East Museum · Stratford
Heads! Look To The Workers, Laura Wilson
This exhibition has ended.
Laura Wilson's commissioned sculptures honour East London's workers and makers through a poem inscribed into three pieces, activated with the call "Heads!" and raised/lowered by a fly system echoing dock and theatre shift patterns.
Museum websiteMore in London
"Heads!" someone on the V&A East team calls across the entrance gallery, and a hoist whirrs. Three stainless-steel discs, each wearing a fabric skirt, come down to waist height. Only then can you read the poem laser-etched into them in Laura Wilson's handwriting: "The lumper, the lurker, the baker, the weaver, the spinner, the sampler, the spark…"
The rig is a theatre fly system, and the daily lowering echoes shift work and the Thames tide. The fabric comes from JD McDougall, Stratford's theatrical supplier. In theatre, "Heads" warns you about flying scenery; Wilson uses it to make you look at the people whose labour built east London.
It is one free piece on the Upper Ground floor, not a show of rooms. Lowerings happen at different times each day; miss one and Wilson's reading of the poem is on the V&A's SoundCloud. Her source objects, including a theatre safety curtain control panel, are at V&A East Storehouse, Level 2. It closes Sunday 18 October.
Look for
The lowering
Look for a staff member at the backstage-style hoist: after the call of "Heads!", each disc drops with a whirr until its skirt grazes the floor.
The etched poem
Wilson's handwriting, laser-etched into the steel in three acts, addresses east London workers from the 19th-century dock lumper to the 17th-century Spitalfields weaver.
The fabric skirts
Theatre cloth from Stratford's JD McDougall in high-vis yellow, early 20th-century workwear hues and the avocado pink of the overalls shown at the Storehouse.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Cheap Culture
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You want a full exhibition: this is three hanging sculptures in the entrance gallery.
Also at V&A East Museum
On now nearby
Image credits
3
- The Wallace Collection at WarCourtesy of Wallace Collection
- Serpentine Pavilion 2026 by LANZA atelier© LANZA atelier. Photo: Iwan Baan. Courtesy Serpentine.
- Richard Dadd: Beyond BedlamCourtesy of Royal Academy of Arts