Art on the Underground

Home
United Kingdom
London
Art on the Underground

Welcome to our official page. TfL’s contemporary art programme.

Art on the Underground was launched in 2000 to promote greater understanding of the Tube as a cultural and social environment. Since then, we have been producing and presenting new public artworks for the Underground network. As London's largest public contemporary arts programme, Art on the Underground is a pioneer in commissioning and celebrating contemporary artworks. Millions of people travel

on the Tube every day, and Art on the Underground aims to enrich these journeys, today and for the future.

18/06/2026

Listen to the Pride Audio Tour, a new public audio tour produced by Art on the Underground in collaboration with OUTbound, TfL’s LGBTQ+ colleague network.

The tour guides listeners across five public artworks on the TfL network and beyond, exploring how LGBTQ+ perspectives and identities are made visible and inspire these works. Each stop features a personal reflection, bringing together voices from TfL colleagues, artists, and collaborators.

The Pride Audio Tour was created to function both as a tour and a podcast, allowing you to listen to the stories from anywhere without needing to visit the artworks, though we of course encourage you to view the artworks in person if you can!

Visit the link in bio to listen to the audio tour, including Zahara C-Jones reflecting on q***r freedom through Phoebe Boswell’s ‘we move through scales of blue’, Dr Maggie Matić explores Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings’ Angels of History, Abel Holsborough discusses Teresa Margolles’ ‘Mil Veces un Instante’, featuring casts of 726 trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people and OUTbound member and Service Manager Alexander Garnett-Scherer introduces Nina Wakeford’s Pink Depot.

Happy pride month!

🏳️‍🌈

17/06/2026

Since 2023, Art on the Underground has been commissioning audio artworks for Tube stations across London.

Developed in collaboration with the Mayor of London’s Community Spaces at Risk programme, these sound installations have included, ‘Route Words’ by Shenece Oretha, ‘Radio Underground’ by Joe Namy and ‘Go Find Miracles’ by Rory Pilgrim.

In the lead-up to the launch of our next sound commission by Ain Bailey on 29 June, we’ll be revisiting a few of these earlier commissions here.

Keep an eye 👁️ and an ear 👂 out. In the meantime, visit our website to find out more about these previous sound commissions.

Special thanks to

10/06/2026

Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner’ is a new sound artwork for Waterloo station by London-based composer, artist and DJ Ain Bailey (b. London, 1963) with experimental vocalist and movement artist Elaine Mitchener (b. London, 1970).

For this commission, Bailey has written a new libretto, interspersed with lyrics taken from Hubert Gregg’s Blitz-era love song ‘Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner’. The 6:30-minute audio work undertakes an autobiographical mapping of cultural spaces across London that have been important to Ain Bailey over more than five decades.

The libretto has been interpreted and performed by Elaine Mitchener as a multi-layered composition for voice. Mitchener brings her singular compositional style of vocal free experimentation to sound the names of venues listed within Bailey’s lyrics – loose groupings of community spaces, record shops, LGBTQI+ bars, and landmarks of London.

The work will be heard at Waterloo Underground station along the travelator connecting the Northern and Jubilee lines, 29 Jun—10 July 2026.

Elaine Mitchener is a British Afro-Caribbean vocalist, movement artist and composer working between contemporary/experimental new music, free improvisation and visual art. She is currently a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist, an Artist Associate with ENSEMBLE KLANG and a NEEDCompany Fellow. Elaine was a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Fellow (2022), an exhibiting artist in the British Art Show 9 (2021-22) and was selected for the Rauschenberg Residency (2020). In February 2022 Mitchener was awarded an MBE for Services to Music. Her debut album SOLO THROAT was released in May 2024 under Café Oto’s OTORUKO label.

Photo by D.Djuric

09/06/2026

🏳️‍🌈Our Pride Audio Tour, a new public audio tour produced by Art on the Underground in collaboration with OUTbound, TfL’s LGBTQ+ colleague network is now live! 🏳️‍⚧️

The tour guides listeners across five public artworks on the TfL network and beyond, exploring how LGBTQ+ perspectives and identities are made visible and inspire these works. Each stop features a personal reflection, bringing together voices from TfL colleagues, artists, and those connected to the works.

The Pride Audio Tour was created to function both as a tour and a podcast, allowing you to listen to the stories from anywhere without needing to visit the artworks, though we of course encourage you to view the artworks in person if you can!

In this piece Rudy Loewe’s ‘The Congregation’ is discussed with SisterMatic, the UK’s first le***an sound system.

Visit the link in bio or Art on the Undergrounds website to listen to the audio tour including, Zahara C-Jones reflecting on q***r freedom through Phoebe Boswell’s ‘we move through scales of blue’, Dr Maggie Matić explores Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings’ Angels of History, Abel Holsborough discusses Teresa Margolles’ ‘Mil Veces un Instante’, featuring casts of 726 trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people and OUTbound member and Service Manager Alexander Garnett-Scherer introduces Nina Wakeford’s Pink Depot.

🌈

03/06/2026

We’re super excited to be working with artist and DJ Ain Bailey (b. London, 1963) on our next sound commission at Waterloo station.

‘Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner’ is a new sound artwork by Ain Bailey, created with experimental vocalist and movement artist Elaine Mitchener (b. London, 1970).

A new libretto by Bailey is interspersed with lyrics taken from Hubert Gregg’s Blitz-era love song ‘Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner’, which Mitchener has reinterpreted. The 6-minute audio work undertakes an autobiographical mapping of cultural spaces across London that have been important to Ain Bailey over more than five decades. Reverberating their names through the station, Bailey asks how our shared environments carry collective meaning, shaping community and identity.

Presented along the travelator connecting the Northern and Jubilee lines at Waterloo Underground station, the work will be heard from 29 June–10 July 2026.

Images:
1. Ain Bailey. Photo by Katarzyna Perlak
2. Centerprise, 158 Kingsland High Street, E8. Photographer unknown (1981), Hackney People’s Press Image. Courtesy of Hackney Archives

26/05/2026

In 2020, Art on the Underground launched ‘Pleasure’s Inaccuracies’ by Lucy McKenzie at Sudbury Town Tube station. Inspired by it’s historic design and architecture, the artwork responds to this 1931 Charles Holden station with two permanent hand-painted ceiling murals featuring maps of the local area, kiosk posters and a highly detailed architectural model of the station. By respecting Sudbury Town’s original design, McKenzie’s commission reflects the present through the aesthetic of the past.

Six years on, we visited the station to ask local residents what they think of the work?

Video by

11/05/2026

If you’re passing through Westminster Tube station, don’t miss this…

Larry Achiampong’s ‘PAN AFRICAN FLAG FOR THE RELIC TRAVELLERS’ ALLIANCE (UNION)’ sits proudly above the main entrance, facing Big Ben — a permanent artwork installed at Westminster Tube station since 2022.

Find out more about ‘PAN AFRICAN FLAG FOR THE RELIC TRAVELLERS’ ALLIANCE (UNION)’ via our website.

01/05/2026

We’re hiring a Curator (Maternity Cover)! 🚨

Art on the Underground commissions world‑class contemporary artists to create ambitious projects across London’s Underground network, seen by millions every day. The programme includes permanent artworks, temporary commissions and live performances, placing contemporary art at the heart of public space.

We’re seeking a Curator (Maternity Cover) to join our team on a fixed‑term contract of up to 13 months, leading the delivery of major commissions and working closely with artists, producers and TfL teams on high‑profile projects that reflect London’s cultural diversity.

⏰ Deadline to apply: 14 May
👉 Find out more via the ‘About’ page on our website (link in bio).

30/04/2026

AOTU Recommends:

Ain Bailey
The Jamaica Project at Camden Art Centre
On view until 14 June 2026

London-based composer, artist and DJ Ain Bailey’s first institutional solo exhibition, The Jamaica Project, is currently showing at Camden Art Centre.

The exhibition presents Bailey’s ongoing trilogy of films and compositions, rooted in her biography and her relationship to Jamaica. For over 15 years, Bailey has worked at the forefront of sonic exploration. Using sound in all its forms, she opens up spaces of grief, loss, resistance and remembering — creating active and radical models of community, co‑production and connection.

Recorded during the artist’s first visit to Jamaica in 2025, the exhibition’s newly commissioned work, ‘5C Jacques Road: Part One (2026)’, invites viewers to travel with Bailey across the island towards the place where her mother’s family once lived.

Art on the Underground is excited to be working with Ain Bailey on our next sound commission, launching at Waterloo Station on 29 June.

Image: Still from Ain Bailey, ‘5C Jacques Road: Part One’, 2026. Courtesy of the artist.

16/04/2026

Yesterday we launched this year’s Writer in Residence project ‘Thoughtism’ at Earl’s Court Underground Station

Writer in Residence is a creative opportunity for a TfL colleague to develop their writing by working with TfL’s contemporary art programme, Art on the Underground, over a period of six months.

Our 2025/2026 resident, Claire Lindsey, is a stand-up comedian and TfL Incident Response Coordinator. During her residency, she created Thoughtism, a series of jokes inspired by everyday experiences on the network and referencing TfL’s history of art and design. By combining her passion for public transport, spies and comedy, the project is built around the idea of layered discovery used by comedians and spies alike.

“My desire was to contribute something creative that brings a moment of happiness to someone’s journey. Comedy is my art form, where even a pun can contain several layers of meaning.

I’m neurodivergent, at an interchange of autism, ADHD and dyslexia — the junction of how I experience patterns in language and everyday life. I call this being Thoughtistic, and my method is Thoughtism. It’s a playful philosophy of noticing, where a slightly different way of thinking can reveal unexpected meanings and humour already present in our everyday language — the small signals hidden in plain sight. Comedy lies within the tension of structure colliding with the unpredictability of human nature, especially on public transport.” – Claire Lindsey

The project was launched with a live stand-up set by Claire in Earl’s Court station.

Find out more via the link in bio!

Photos
Design Hato

Address

London

Website

http://art.tfl.gov.uk/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Art on the Underground posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Featured

British DJ & MC Academy
The grangeway
Hephzibar Foundation