Grounding the System: Stephen Willats and a Participatory Art of the Wasteland
Research Lunch – Christopher Williams-Wynn
- 13 November 2026
- 1:00 – 2:00 pm
- Paul Mellon Centre
In this talk, Christopher Williams-Wynn explores the links between systems thinking and participatory art by focusing on works by the London-based artist Stephen Willats. During the 1970s, Willats developed projects with communities in the UK by drawing on concepts from cybernetics. This archetypal Cold War science was dedicated to the study of control and communication in various kinds of systems, whether ecological, social or technical, and it had a broad impact on disciplines and institutions, including the art world. Situating Willats’s interactive works amidst these artistic and scientific developments, this talk examines the relationship between systems and sites to uncover the significance of socio-ecological history for participatory practice.
By the end of the 1970s, Willats began working in the “Lurky Place”, a plot of so-called wasteland in West London. This derelict site, since remediated and transformed into Minet Country Park, served as a gathering place for residents of the neighbouring Avondale Estate. Working with these community members, Willats produced multi-panel works incorporating texts, photographs and diagrams that juxtapose residents’ self-organised activities with the rigid social institutions that surrounded them. Yet, the untended environment – heavily polluted due to decades of industrial activity – also shaped the residents’ use of the site and the terms of their representation. Surfacing the intersecting environmental and social histories of the Lurky Place, Christopher shows how Willats advanced a mode of participatory art that brought the abstractions of systems thinking down to the ground.
Event format
13.00: Welcome and talk start
13.40: Talk finishes
13.40-14.00: Q&A
Please note that a light lunch and refreshments are provided at the event.
Accessibility at a Glance at the Paul Mellon Centre
✔ Level access: A portable ramp is available to provide wheelchair access. Please ring the bell on the right-hand railings outside the main entrance at number 16 for assistance. If possible, it’s helpful to let us know in advance if you will need the ramp, so we can have it ready. Please contact us at events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk
✔ Accessible for large power wheelchairs
✔ One accessible toilet on the ground floor
✔ Hearing loop available (please contact events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk)
✖ Livestreamed
✖ Recorded
✖ BSL
✖ Live captioning
If you wish to inform us of any access requirements, please email events@paul-mellon-centre.
Stephen Willats, Homeostat Drawing No. 1, 1969, graphite on paper, 58 x 78.5 cm. Digital image courtesy of Tate (T14919) @ Stephen Willats
About the speaker
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Christopher Williams-Wynn is an historian and theorist of modern and contemporary art. His research examines how media have been used to explore the epistemological claims, political consequences and aesthetic implications of disciplinary knowledge and practice. At the centre of his work is an investigation of the ways that artists employ concepts and techniques from various fields – ranging from cybernetics and engineering to finance and ecology – to remake the terms of artistic practice and interrogate forms of power. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Arts of Control: Cultural Production and Systems Thinking During the Cold War” (MIT Press, 2026), and his writing has appeared in Art Journal, Grey Room, The Art Bulletin, Modernism/modernity and Third Text, among other journals. Support for his research has been provided by institutions including the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, European Research Council, German Academic Exchange Service, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institute, and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (PMC).