London commuters: has art ever saved your life?
The new whale tail posters on the Tube are making a splash, asking commuters for times when art has saved their lives.
Posters displayed all over the London Underground are calling out to the public for stories of the power of art, using conceptual artist Ahmet Öğüt's piece 'Saved by the Whale's Tail, Saved by Art'.
The unusual image is inspired by a Metro incident in Rotterdam in 2020, when an empty train nearly fell 10m into a canal. The train overran its stop blocks on an elevated line while on a safety test-run but was saved by a huge whale tail sculpture, installed by artist Maarten Strujis in 2002.
The driver survived and the extraordinary images went viral, capturing the imagination of a locked-down population in Holland and further afield. The viral incident inspired Öğüt to think about times that art has saved lives, literally and metaphorically.
The public are invited to send in their examples, which will then be judged and the winning story displayed alongside Öğüt's new commission going up in Stratford Tube station on September 10. The large-scale piece, commissioned by TfL's Art on the Underground programme for their 25th anniversary, will be a reference to the life-saving statue in Rotterdam.
The winners will also receive a small statue of the whale tail in bronze resembling an award ceremony trophy designed by Öğüt.
'Artists are often seen as those who pose questions without providing answers, or as individuals who can address issues only symbolically, without the ability to fix the world,' said the Kurdish artist, who works in Amsterdam. 'However, the real role of art and artists goes far beyond that. There are artworks and artists who have had a real, transformative impact on society.'
The piece was commissioned by Art on the Underground and early career artist support organisation New Contemporaries.
Ahmet Öğüt was born in Silvan, Diyarbakir and studied art in Ankara and Istanbul. He's known for his use of different media, including photography, video and installation pieces, and often uses humour to comment on politics and current affairs.
He has an impressive CV of solo exhibitions in the likes London's Chisenhale Gallery, Basel's Kunsthalle and California's Berkeley Art Museum. He's also been featured in plenty of big international shows, such as the Berlin Biennale, the New Museum Triennial in New York and the Istanbul Biennial.
The life-saving whale tail is not the only installation being brought to London commuters this year – Waterloo station will be enjoying a soundscape on the travelator between the Jubilee and Northern lines for two weeks in July. It is being created by the Turner prize nominated artist and composer Rory Pilgrim in collaboration with the Community Spaces at Risk (CCSaR) programme.
Brixton station will also be treated to a brand new mural by London-based artist Rudy Loewe as part of the Brixton Mural Programme. Her work interrogates how history is remembered by institutional archives and will explore the diverse narratives of the area.
The new pocket Tube map, the 41st of its kind, will be designed by 94-year-old Hungarian born American artist Agnes Denes, whose conceptual art explores science, philosophy, poetry and the environment. The design will 'electrify' her most iconic work Map Projections, which depicts the Earth as different shapes, and comes out in spring.
Some of the most famous Art on the Underground commissions include the labyrinth designs found at 272 stations, designed by Mark Wallinger, and Eduardo Paolozzi's colourful mosaics at Tottenham Court Road.
The first commission, in 2000, was the Underground Safari, designed by artist Kendra Haste. It was displayed on the disused platform at Gloucester Road station by the Circle and District line.
To submit a story of how art changed your life, visit the New Contemporaries website.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
18 hours ago
- Washington Post
Friends raced to check out every Metro station in one day. Would they make it?
Lots of people — okay, at least seven people — have visited every Metro stop in a single day. It's even in the Guinness Book of World Records. But as far as they know, John Veltum and his friends are the first to try actually swiping in and out of all 98 stations. Why? To see if they could. Why now? 'We know that Metro is extending their hours,' Veltum said. Starting Sunday, June 22, the system will open at 6 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays and close at 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. With that kind of time, they figured anyone could do it. For now, it still felt like a challenge: 'We were really under the impression we were racing against the end of the service day.' Trains have always attracted competitive riders — the first New York City subway run was in 1940. But Metro speedrunning has really taken off in the past couple of years as the system has gotten both more reliable and more savvy about social media. Veltum and his friends are Metro fans, but really they're the kind of people who want to turn anything into a game. They've also build a raft of garbage and sailed it across the Potomac. They weren't planning to submit for a Guinness — 'it's kind of sold-out,' Veltum said — but they did hope people would follow along. Would they beat the clock? On X and Instagram, followers debated the cost (a day pass is $13.50) and the bathroom access ('technically open to the public'). Louie Melluish and Will Sheriff built a model that told them the most efficient route. Running a simulation a million times, they were given an average completion time of just under 20 hours and a 72 percent chance of making it. They liked those odds. Megan Magette monitored the MetroPulse app for delays. And they used a guide they found on Reddit to position themselves closest to the escalators at every stop. They left Shady Grove in Maryland at 5 a.m. on a Friday morning, with a plan to get to Ashburn in Virginia before midnight. The goal was to hit the downtown stations during rush hour to take advantage of the highest possible frequencies in the most crowded stations. (Knocking people over was not in the spirit of the race.) At emptier stations that get fewer frequencies, they would aim to get on and off the same train to avoid wasting minutes. After finishing the Red Line at Glenmont, they doubled back and covered the Green Line from Greenbelt to L'Enfant Plaza, then the eastern legs of Blue, Orange and Silver. (There was a pit stop at U Street, where a friend brought them bananas and water.) To avoid a single-tracking delay — and make sure they didn't miss Arlington Cemetery, which closes before the rest of the system — they did the southern ends of Yellow and Blue before going back to Green. The final leg would head west toward Fairfax and Ashburn. Early on, they realized they might have overestimated the difficulty of the task. 'We'd been very pessimistic on our assumptions of when the next train would come,' Veltum said. The model also assumed they would never make it back on the same train they got off after going in and out of the station, but they did so a dozen times. That's where the guide came in. It's the work of Ethan Ableman, 30, a lifelong Metro rider, who put it on Reddit about two years ago. The idea came, unfortunately, from signage on newer New York subway cars. Following Ableman's advice on where to stand, they were always in the car closest to the exit. 'I wouldn't have taken this on except for the fact that I realized that there's this little measuring stick that is in the D.C. Metro, which is the platform edge lights,' he said. 'Every single station has exactly the same' (digression: almost the same) 'layout of the edge lights.' No tape measure necessary. The guide took him about six months to put together, with the help of Google Slides. Although he emphasizes that it is not an official WMATA guide, he did use their Helvetica font. Has he thought about doing a Metro speed-run? No. 'I am very much a transit nerd, but I'm more interested in the operations and the structure of the system,' Ableman said. 'People have different types of nerdy stuff.' So, back to our original crew. They made it to Ashburn at 8:30 p.m., with three and a half hours to spare. They had crisscrossed the region in 15 hours 35 minutes. The surprise favorite: Hyattsville Crossing (formerly known as Prince George's Plaza), an open station crowned by a distinctive Brutalist parking garage. They got a group shot in the otherwise deserted station thanks to a stranger who had been following along on social media and decided to greet them at the finish line. He wasn't the only one. Seeing they wanted to go to Denny's after the ride, an 'angel' named Anna showed up and offered them a ride. Yes, by car. After 98 stops, and twice as many closing doors, Veltum explained, 'the ding gets a little traumatic.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
History of London's rollercoaster railway where 'passengers can be the driver'
Like a rollercoaster ride in slow-motion, travelling the elevated lines of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) has become a much-loved experience for many Londoners. First opened in 1987, the railway has grown into a series of interconnecting routes over the years, stretching from the City to south east London. Initially built to serve the Docklands in the hope of spurring redevelopment in the area, the first trains ran from Tower Gateway or Stratford to Island Gardens. The trains were fully automated and driverless, giving passengers the opportunity to pretend to be a train driver for the day (let's be honest, we've all done it). READ MORE - Over the coming weeks, we'll be using maps to tell you the story of each of TfL's lines. The images used in this story have been provided by TfL Corporate Archives. To find out more about the history of the London Underground visit TfL's Google Arts and Culture page - London Tube map from 1988 showing the initial DLR branches from Stratford and Tower Gateway to Island Gardens (Image: TfL Corporate Archives) A station at Bank, which connected to the existing line through an Underground tunnel, was opened in 1991. Three years afterwards, an extension to the railway between Poplar and Beckton was in operation. Tube map from 1994 showing the extension between Poplar and Beckton (Image: TfL Corporate Archives) Before the end of the Millenium, a further expansion of the route had been built, taking trains underneath the River Thames from Island Gardens to Lewisham. The south side of the Royal Docks was the next area to benefit from the DLR, with a new branch between Canning Town and King George V opening in 2005. DLR map from 1997 (Image: TfL Corporate Archives) Four years later, an extension of this spur under the river brought trains to Woolwich Arsenal. In 2011, ahead of the London 2012 Olympics, the newest section of the DLR opened, between Stratford International and Canning Town via West Ham. Tube map from 2000 showing DLR extension to Lewisham (Image: TfL Corporate Archives) The first of 54 new walk-through, air-conditioned trains are expected to be rolled out on the network before the end of this year. A further extension of the Beckton branch is also expected over the next decade, with new stops at Beckton Riverside and Thamesmead. Today, the railway spans 34km of track and calls at 45 stations on three separate branches.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
The Essentials To Know About Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour In London
If you've been following all things related to Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour - from Tina Knowles revealing how Rumi begged to join her mum on stage, to Blue providing viral dancing moments on stage and celebrities dressing up for the tour - then you'll know that Beyonce's London leg commenced on June 5. The global star has made her highly anticipated return to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in June to kick of six London shows in the North London stadium as part of her Cowboy Carter World Tour. Between June 5 and 16, over 62,000 fans will see the singer perform her country album for the first time ever in the UK. If you've already got your tickets secured and want to know how you can plan ahead, below we list all that there is to know about performance times, setlists, what to wear, leaving the stadium, who will be opening for Beyoncé and more... then keep reading below. FIND OUT MORE ON ELLE COLLECTIVE Take a closer look at the full breakdown of the Cowboy Carter Tour setlist for the London dates below. Based on Bey's pervious performances, this list gives you a solid idea of what to expect, but keep in mind that every show has its own flair, so the lineup may shift slightly on the night. 'Ameriican Requiem' 'Blackbiird' 'The Star-Spangled Banner' 'Freedom' 'YA YA' / 'Why Don't You Love Me' mashup 'AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM' 'SPAGHETTII' 'Formation' 'MY HOUSE' 'Diva' 'ALLIIGATOR TEARS' 'JUST FOR FUN' 'PROTECTOR' 'FLAMENCO' 'DESERT EAGLE' 'RIIVERDANCE' 'II HANDS II HEAVEN' 'SWEET ★ HONEY ★ BUCKIIN'' / 'Summer Renaissance' / 'Pure/Honey' mashup 'Jolene' 'Daddy Lessons' 'BODYGUARD' 'II MOST WANTED' 'CUFF IT' 'TYRANT' 'THIQUE' 'LEVII'S JEANS' 'DAUGHTER' 'I'M THAT GIRL' 'COZY' 'ALIEN SUPERSTAR' 'TEXAS HOLD 'EM' 'Crazy in Love' 'HEATED' 'Before I Let Go' '16 CARRIAGES' 'AMEN' Given that the album country themed, western wear is the dress code for the Cowboy Carter tour. From double denim, to cowboy boots, hats, shorts and gold and silver jewellery, the options of what to wear are endless. Before you can sing your way through the stellar setlist, you'll need to plan how you're getting to the venue. Although Tottenham Hotspur stadium has advised visitors not to drive, there are plenty of other transport options to choose from. Heading to the stadium from central London? The nearest tube stations to the venue are Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale, both about a 30-minute walk away. Conveniently, both are on the Victoria Line, so they are easily accessible from Oxford Circus, Kings Cross, and Euston stations. Several TFL bus services, including the W3, 149, 259, 279, and 349, stop at or near the venue. However, the stadium advises that on concert days, these routes may experience minor diversions due to road closures for the event. Need to reach the venue from East London? White Hart Lane on the Weaver Overground line is the nearest station to the Station, offering a direct connection from Liverpool Street. See more information from the Tottenham Hotspur stadium at the link here. The stadium doors open at 5 pm, with Beyoncé's anticipated to take the stage around 7.30 pm. However, based on her previous Cowboy Carter shows, she often begins her performance closer to 8.15 pm. Whilst nothing has yet been confirmed, given that Beyoncé hasn't had an opening act for her tour so far, there's no indication that this would change in London. However, rumour has it that Sir Paul McCartney may join Beyoncé on stage for her rendition of the Beatles song 'Blackbird', as well as support from her DJ. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has a restricted bag policy and requires all bags to be less than A4 in size (21cm long x 30cm high). Everyone knows that one of the best parts of going to a concert, is the pre-show itself. From getting ready with your friends, while blasting all of songs ahead of the gig, there's nothing quite like it. Whether you've already got a dedicated Cowboy Carter playlist or are still adding the finishing touches to your carefully curated playlist, Spotify are here to enhance that experience. The music streaming platform have created a limited-edition collection of playlist cover art stickers that you can add to your playlist throughout the tour. With designs that include cowboy boots, a Cowboy Carter sash and a 'TEXAS HOLD 'EM' license plate, you can easily access these by clicking the 'Create Cover Art' tool. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE. You Might Also Like Pyjamas You Can Wear All Day 10 Hand Soaps To Make Your Bathroom Feel Like A Fancy Hotel 8 Of The Best Natural Deodorants
