In 1826, government officials appointed architect John Nash to develop a plan for new urban realm in what had once been where the royal hawks then horses – including a stable designed by William Kent – were kept. Nash developed his plans at pace, with clearances of the site commencing in the same year he had been approached for designs. In the centre of his scheme was an open plaza, which in 1835 a decision was made to name it in recognition of the Battle of Trafalgar three decades prior.

The final designs for Trafalgar Square were set out by Charles Barry in 1840 who had been forced to include the already-agreed Nelson’s Column despite his and general public opposition. When the square opened to the public in 1844, the grand Parthenon-inspired National Gallery had been open for six years, and apart from a few tweaks since – including the addition of the Column’s four lions in 1867, Norman Foster’s steps and pedestrianisation to the northern side of the square in 2003, and the appropriation of the spare fourth plinth to be a changing contemporary art space – the civic space has largely remained the same since.




Over that period, Trafalgar Square has been the platform for countless civic celebrations, protests, and cultural events. It is the site of New Year parties, home to the capital’s primary Christmas Tree, venue for countless cultural and musical festivals, and where public congregate for national sporting celebrations. It is also a space of deep politics and protest, including: Chartist and workers’ rallies, CND, Poll Tax, anti-war, and climate protests, and public vigils following acts of terrorism. It is also a space of historic non-human occupation – in the 1950s, nearby archaeological finds included evidence of cave lions and hyenas, elephants, and hippos, though none have frequented Soho for approximately 115,000 years.

All these histories and modes of occupying such a public, civic space are in the mind of artist Jeremy Deller as he finalises plans for a huge and immensely playful celebratory event on the 26 July. The artist who has become known to public outside of an art setting for his large-scale public interventions, from a re-enactment of the miner’s-versus-police Battle of Orgreave in 2001 through to the hauntingly poetic We’re Here Because We’re Here, the 2016 centenary of the Battle of the Somme in which Deller worked with 1600 volunteers across the UK to appear as groups in modern-day public settings dressed in WWI regalia.




Not many artists can cross the divide between art-sector appreciation and a general public engagement in the way Deller can. His latest project, which will take over Trafalgar Square, furthers this sincere interest in removing that critical threshold, and he will do so with what the artist described in our recent interview (here) as something that “will be like a Bruegel painting of a medieval fayre.”

It's titled The Triumph of Art and is in aid of the National Gallery’s 200th birthday. Before it moved to its William Watkins-designed temple of art in 1838, the institution had two previous homes – initially in a Pall Mall townhouse and then, after the discovery of subsidence, a neighbouring property. Over those 200 years, our collection has grown from an initial small collection including Raphael and William Hogarth to a collection of over 2,600 works encompassing Johannes Vermeer, Titian, Paul Cezanne, Giovanni Bellini, Vincent van Gogh, and Claude Monet – not to mention British greats including John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough, and Joseph Turner.

Deller is drawing from this cultural history, but also broadening into a multitude of other cultures across the UK and its people in a project that’s been running since April but all ties together in Trafalgar Square. He has been overseeing public processions and celebrations in four locations – Derry-Londonderry, Dundee, Llandudno, and Plymouth – playing with local histories, culture, and forms of identity.




In June, recessed.space went along to Llandudno where the artist had partnered with contemporary art gallery Mostyn on Carreg Ateb: Vision or Dream?. Inspiration was taken from images of the National Gallery’s collection being driven through valleys towards their WWII underground storage in the Manod slate quarry. Deller’s procession, organised with Frân Wen young company theatre group, saw neolithic slate artefacts carried through Llandudno from the town’s museum and into Mostyn, where a large exhibition mixing Deller’s work with selected local makers explored ideas of mythmaking, identity, and stories.

The following day, the artist was involved in an annual event to mark the passing of the solstice and start of summer at Bryn Celli Ddu, a neolithic site on the south of the island of Anglesey just outside Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Here, the theatre group presented a dramatic performance to celebrate the unique ancient architecture of the burial mound which once a year aligns perfectly with the solstice sun. In fantastical costumes, and hammered by cold rain, the burial mound became a stage for entirely modern cultural interpretation that sought to explore possible but unknown histories of people and place.




Two of the artist’s celebratory processions had already taken place by this point. In April, Deller worked with The Playhouse in Derry-Londonderry to present The Triumph of Music, in which characters drawn from traditional folklore as well as more-recent rave history navigated the city streets into Guildhall Square. Performers wearing wicker heads confused the public before enticing them in to the melee, a strategy Deller used in all the events to ensure that not only an art crowd took part, but that the performances, events, and exhibitions were also places to which a general public – many of whom would not have known it was all planned – could join in.





Working with the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Deller turned Dundee into a place of mythical revelry overseen by the Roman god Bacchus, the protector of theatre. In Meet the Gods, characters from the National Gallery’s paintings came to life alongside a suite of animated standing stones, referencing the nearby Balgarthno Stone Circle. Public performances and workshops took place throughout, while artist duo KennardPhillipps helped the public make their own DIY merch to take away as memento.




After Llandudno, the festival travelled to Plymouth for Hello Sailor where it leapt feet-first into the Tinside Lido on the seafront. Deller told us that “Hello Sailor has been a sort of gay, queer phrase – but it has many, many meanings … it's actually sort of tongue in cheek, flirtatious, and always meant to be funny, but slightly wrong.” Partnering with art gallery and museum The Box, the parade featured strongmen carrying a huge inflatable lady inspired by Plymothian artist Beryl Cook.

These performers, characters, and creatures will all come together in Trafalgar Square in a huge outburst of celebration to Bacchus, to the history of the National Gallery, and – importantly – to being in public and sharing experiences. “Trafalgar Square will be like this, it will be open. You go where you want, you leave when you want, there’s no prescribed route.” Deller told us in interview, and while many who attend will know about the event in advance and be there to join in, the very nature of the space means many – or even, most – of those present will have no idea of what they have ventured into.




This is important to Deller. The artist says that such civic and shared spaces are “an essential part of city life [because] you can look at and interact with people in ways you weren't expecting – hopefully positively!” As the national civic space, Trafalgar Square has witnessed countless such interactions, but perhaps none as creatively absurd as a wickerman and standing stone dancing with a strongman and mythical welsh creature to the sounds of a brass band playing rave tunes. But, that’s the kind of joyful encounter that Deller revels in, albeit an exuberance rooted in art history, local meaning, and collaborative development.

Nobody – even the artist himself to some extent – quite knows what will happen on 26 July, but free tea and cake is guaranteed in London as it has been at the four previous events. While some may accuse the National Gallery – full of weighty religious stories in oil, pre-Raphaelite anguish, and neoclassical grandeur – of self-importance and stuffiness, The Triumph of Art is doing all it can to blow those suggestions away. See you there!