Following on from the V&A East X Bow Arts Fellowship in 2024, Bow Arts interviews Laura Wilson about her new commission Heads! Look to the Workers (2026), one of six inaugural commissions for the recently opened V&A East museum.

Laura returned to Royal Albert Wharf in 2026 to put the finishing touches on her new artwork, which honours east London’s workers and makers.

How is it to be back at the Docks? 

Thank you so much for having me back! It’s wonderful to return to the studios — to be by the river again, to hear and see the planes overhead, and to rejoin such a welcoming community. I was last here during my V&A x Bow Arts Fellowship in Spring 2024, and it’s been lovely to see how the area has continued to grow, shift and settle since then.

Last time we saw you, you were working in Newham’s Local Study archives and with the V&A collections to complement your investigation of the rich history of textiles in east London. Can you tell us about what you have been working on since your residency at Royal Albert Wharf in 2024?

Yes, that’s right — during my Fellowship I worked with textile specialists, historians and local people to investigate the textile histories of east London, with a particular focus on the clothes worn by women working in twentieth‑century manufacturing industries such as soap‑making, flour milling, oil storage, dye works, timber yards, munitions factories and the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery. I researched the social and political histories of workwear and the fabrics used to construct it, learning how these garments were made and worn.

Alongside studying the V&A collections, this research took me into local archives, many conversations with specialists, exploring the history of the River Thames, and into learning natural dyeing techniques. From this, I developed a performance, a series of drawings, and a garment created with womenswear designer Georgia Gough, using fabric hand‑dyed with water and materials found locally to my studio in Royal Albert Wharf.

Since then, I’ve been building on this research and working on a commission for V&A East Museum, opening on 18 April 2026. The work, Heads! Look to the Workers (2026), is a series of moving sculptures honouring east London’s makers and workers, drawing on the often‑unseen histories of labour in theatres, factories and women’s workwear.

Congratulations on being commissioned to make a new artwork for the opening of V&A East in Spring— can you share anything about the inspirations behind your piece, Heads! Look to the Workers?

Thank you — it’s been an exciting challenge, especially developing a commission for a building that is still being built while I develop (and install) the work! When I first visited in June 2024, it was still very much a working construction site, and I had to imagine the artwork in relation to the future walls and spaces which I had only seen architectural plans for.

The work is located on Level 1 in the V&A East Entrance Gallery, outside the How We Make Gallery. Heads! Look to the Workers consists of three sculptures inspired by the histories of the surrounding area.

Each day, at different times, the sculptures will be lowered by the V&A East team, giving visitors the chance to read the poem inscribed on their upper surfaces. The poem brings together all my research and reflections over the last two years developing the work.

I’ve been thinking about the landscape the museum sits within — building on my Fellowship research into east London’s industrial histories. This led me to explore the mechanics of the docks, theatre machinery and operating systems, and the rhythms that shape the working day. The area has always been a place of labour — most recently a building site — and is now becoming a new workplace for many, forging new histories within the fabric of the building as well as the wider context of east London.

I made special recording of the poem in February 2026 along the bank of the River Thames in east London, near my studio at Royal Albert Wharf, and you can listen to this on my commission page on the V&A website.

In parallel with this, the garment you made with Georgia Gough as part of your V&A x Bow Arts Fellowship in 2024 is also on display at V&A East Storehouse. Could you please tell us a bit more about this?

During my Fellowship, I developed a set of Overalls (2024) with womenswear designer Georgia Gough. The pattern design draws on my research into women’s workwear and the movement of bodies within industrial spaces. I gathered colour swatches that matched examples of workwear found in archives, and created natural dyes using locally sourced materials — spent coffee grounds from the café at Royal Albert Wharf, and avocado pips and skins collected from food outlets at Westfield. These produced colours that aligned with the archival swatches. I dyed cotton purchased from a local supplier with these colours, and Georgia brought them together into the overalls.

Overalls (2024) are now on display at V&A East Storehouse alongside a selection of objects from my research into the V&A’s collections, including loom weights, pulleys and theatre equipment. I worked closely with Georgia Haseldine, Senior Curator at V&A East Storehouse and her colleagues to select and curate the objects, thinking about how their placement in relation to the garment could draw out these histories and connect with the wider research and materiality of my commission for the Museum.

The pattern cutting for the fabric element in Heads! Look to the Workers (2026), for example, was developed with Georgia Gough and takes inspiration from the cuff of Overalls (2024).

What’s next for you?

I’m excited to get back to the studio – I’m looking forward to doing some weaving on my 8 shaft loom. Also, I’m influded in a new book which is being launched at the BFI in June 2026 – Experimental Cinema: Structures, Systems and Strategies by Simon Payne.