Art on the Underground + New Contemporaries have announced a major new commission by artist Ahmet Ögüt, Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art.
Installed at Stratford Underground station and launching today, this large-scale participatory artwork marks a combined 100 years of the two organisations championing the value and role of artists in public life.
From April to June 2025, the public were invited to reflect on the question – has art ever saved, transformed, or reshaped your life, through a city-wide poster and digital campaign. Hundreds of deeply personal responses were shared revealing common threads – that art is not merely decorative or symbolic but foundational. It can save, transform, and make visible lives and voices too often overlooked.
From the open call a winning story, The Bracelet by Helen Whitley, was selected to be featured as part of the installation at Stratford station alongside a free publication available at the station and online. Helen, a doctor and artist based in London, said ‘medicine teaches you to look fast. Art teaches you to look again’. Helen’s emotive and dramatic story captured the imagination of the selection panel and she will be presented with a special bronze trophy-sculpture made by Ögüt. “This is an award not for artists, but for the public,” Ögüt says. “Too often, the public are reduced to statistics or passive viewers. Here, they are the catalyst.” Rather than showcasing merely his own voice, Ögüt acts as facilitator and amplifier—preserving agency, sharing risk, and centring vulnerability.
At the heart of the project is a true story – in 2020, a train in Rotterdam overran the tracks and was miraculously caught by a sculpture of a whale’s tail. Ögüt turns this surreal moment into metaphor and intervention, asking if art can act as a literal and figurative safety net in a world of crisis? What if art didn’t just represent transformation, but caused it?
Stratford station—a site of daily journeys and countless encounters—becomes a powerful stage for public reflection. As Ögüt notes, “People don’t arrive at Stratford expecting to reflect on trauma or transformation. But that friction is the work. That moment of pause is part of the impact.” The installation turns public transit into a space for democratic cultural discourse—inviting strangers to bear witness to each other’s stories in passing. In placing personal testimony at the heart of a mass transport system, the commission asserts the legitimacy of lived experience as a form of public knowledge.
Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art is a commitment to protecting the rights of artists and the public to speak freely, to take risks, and to shape the world around them.
Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on the Underground, said:
“Art on the Underground has been bringing leading international artists to the spaces of the Tube for 25 years. In 2025, we continue this tradition, with a series of thoughtful commissions that foreground interactions with art in daily life. Ögüt’s project connects with the essential quality of art – to save us, literally and figuratively. There is no space like the Tube to reflect on these public stories, reaching millions of Londoners and visitors alike. This commission brings us together as we travel though the city by exploring the profound importance of art to our individual life stories.”
Ahmet Ögüt’s Art on the Underground commission is a collaboration with New Contemporaries, the leading organisation supporting emerging and early career artists, and forms part of an ambitious programme taking place throughout 2025 which reimagines how the organisation works with, and for, artists.
Kiera Blakey, Director of New Contemporaries, said:
“New Contemporaries has been the story of British art for 75 years. With Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art, Ahmet Ögüt makes visible the urgent, life-shaping power of art. At a time when culture is increasingly sidelined, this commission asserts our commitment to protecting artists and defending the spaces where art can challenge, transform, and endure. It places public voices at the centre—reminding us that art doesn’t just reflect the world, it helps remake it.”
Ahmet Ögüt: Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art, 19th September 2025 – 31st December 2026 Stratford Underground station
