Every seven-year-old schoolchild in London will get the chance to be part of a mammoth art project created by 12 Years a Slave Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen.
The artist and film-maker announced plans to take class pictures of 115,000 Year 3 boys and girls in all of the capital’s 2,410 primary schools to create “a portrait of an entire age group of Londoners”.
The nine-month project will be put on show at Tate Britain in November 2019. Mr McQueen will also receive help with the huge project from art charities Artangel and A New Direction.
The Tate said the project will begin as tens of thousands of seven-year-olds start a new school year in a new class in London.
‘A milestone in a child’s development’
It added: “This is a milestone year in a child’s development and sense of identity, when they become more conscious of the world beyond their immediate family. McQueen’s project will capture this moment of excitement, anxiety and hope through the traditional medium of the class photograph, depicting rows of children sitting or standing alongside their teachers and teaching assistants.”
The organisers are inviting every London primary school to register their school at tateyear3project.org.uk, where they can choose a date and time for a Tate photographer, briefed by McQueen, to visit their school and take their Year 3 class photograph.
Each participating school will also get access to learning resources that will allow pupils to explore the work’s key themes of “belonging, identity and citizenship”.
The organisers said there will also be a live-streamed lesson in the spring of 2019 so primary school classes across the UK will be able to see the progress of the work.
Artangel, which specialises in exhibiting art in unexpected places, will also create an outdoor exhibition of class photographs across all of London’s 33 boroughs, giving passers-by “a glimpse of the future of their city”.
Steve McQueen won the Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, in 2013. In 1999 he was awarded the prestigious Turner Prize for short film and video installation work.
