London Sculpture Week takes a community first approach

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With a focus on artists who are pushing the boundaries of their practice and building connections between the urban environment and its communities, London Sculpture Week celebrates public art across the city (17–24 September). Created in collaboration with Frieze Sculpture, Fourth Plinth, Sculpture in the City, and The Line, the programme for its second edition includes public art tours, family workshops and performances.

With the aim of bringing contemporary sculpture to the widest possible audience, all events during the week are free to the public. This year, London Sculpture Week is complemented by a digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects app, which provides information on each of the partners as well as a daily schedule with links to booking slots. Highlights include a series of public conversations led by Youth Guides, a group of 18 to 21-year-olds from east London, who will share their insights into the artworks, history and nature along The Line: a free public art walk that stretches from Greenwich Peninsula to the Royal Docks and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. On 23 September, The Line will also host a mask-making workshop in collaboration with Thames Festival Trust at Greenwich Peninsula. Participants will learn how to use recycled materials to create masks in the style of Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey whose five-metre-tall totemic sculpture Tribe and Tribulation (2022) can be seen on the banks of the river Thames.

untitled: megaphone (2014), Phyllida Barlow. Photo: © Nick Turpin; courtesy Hauser & Wirth; © Phyllida Barlow

Meanwhile, in the city’s financial district, walking tours led by Stella Ioannou, artistic director of Sculpture in the City, will explore the wide range of artworks that make up the 12th edition of the open-air exhibition, including works by Phyllida Barlow, Arturo Herrera and Simeon Barclay.

In the English Gardens of Regent’s Park, the 11th edition of Frieze Sculpture, curated by Fatoş Üstek, brings together works by 21 international artists whose practices take conceptual, experiential, humorous and imaginative approaches to public art. On 24 September, Üstek will lead two guided tours of the exhibition, which includes The Hop: an immersive installation by the London-based artist Jyll Bradley, titled after the ancient structure for growing hop plants. Within this space, artists, creatives and community groups are invited to host performances, workshops, social gatherings and picnics.

London Sculpture Week runs until 24 September 2023. Discover more and book free tickets to events with the digital guide to London Sculpture Week on the Bloomberg Connects app.