TRANSPORT for London (TfL) has announced five new works in its rich and varied Art on the Underground programme for 2026. The new commissions will give space to underrepresented voices, and the renowned painter Hurvin Anderson will deliver the tenth annual commission in the Brixton Mural Programme in November.
Since its conception in 2000, Art on the Underground has commissioned site-specific works on the TfL network that examine themes of community, space and place, and bring unexpected interactions and new perspectives to the millions who travel on London’s transport network each year. Five new commissions by contemporary artists will launch over the course of the year, inspired by subterranean histories, lost voices and hidden work, exploring historic imbalances and under-representation and reframing public space.
London-based artist, Phoebe Boswell will launch a large-scale photographic artwork at Bethnal Green and Notting Hill Underground stations in March, inspired by local Black swimming communities, while American artist Ellen Gallagher will explore colonial landscapes and marine mythology in her design for the 42nd pocket Tube map.
The third audio artwork commission at Waterloo Underground station will run for 10 days in the summer with the Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme, by London-based composer, artist and DJ Ain Bailey. In September, a largescale artwork by Scottish painter Caroline Walker, spotlighting women who work on the TfL network at night, will be introduced at Stratford station.
In November, a new mural will launch at Brixton Underground station by leading painter Hurvin Anderson. It will be the tenth in a series of annual commissions that responds to the rich history of murals in Brixton from the 1980s, and the wider social and political history of mural making. It will follow Anderson’s upcoming major exhibition at Tate Britain.
2026’s programme is sponsored by specialist recruitment company, Reed, as part of its ongoing commitment to Art on the Underground.
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said: “For two and a half decades, Art on the Underground has shown how public art can bring joy, spark conversation and connect our communities. This year we have five new commissions to look forward to, which are sure to enrich our journeys and amplify untold stories that celebrate the diversity and resilience of our capital. From Hurvin Anderson bringing his renowned style to Brixton to Phoebe Boswell being inspired by local Black swimming communities, these works will entertain and delight, as we build a better London for everyone.”
Eleanor Pinfield, Head of Art on the Underground, said: “Art on the Underground continues to bring remarkable artists to London, reframing public space and our interactions within it. This year, we present a programme of artworks that explore omissions from public space; works engaging with lost waterways of London, the lost venues that have supported voices in the city and the hidden labour of nighttime workers. We also mark our tenth artwork in the remarkable series at Brixton station, works that go some way to capture the multifaceted nature of Brixton over time. These works, and our wider programme, continue to shape, direct and honour how we collectively experience and remember place – whether that be our local community or spaces we travel through at different times of our lives.”
James Reed, CBE, Chairman and CEO of Reed Employment, said: “I am delighted to continue our sponsorship of Art on the Underground, a programme that gets into the heart of London, influencing how we feel and experience the city each day. As a Londoner, it is very exciting to see or hear new artwork and this programme is rich in new experiences for travellers. I can’t wait to see each project unfold.”
The Art on the Underground programme for 2026 includes:
A large-scale photographic artwork by London-based artist Phoebe Boswell will launch at Bethnal Green and Notting Hill stations in March. Following a public call out to Black swimming communities around Bethnal Green and Notting Hill, this new work will continue Boswell’s exploration of water as a site of healing, migratory trauma and collective power. Installed on panels running adjacent to the escalators, the artwork will comprise four multi-layered photographic assemblages of Black swimmers who have made London their home, or whose families have historically migrated here across generations. Beneath the city’s surface, the Tube shares its underground world with a labyrinth of lost rivers. This project imagines those waterways as channels for memory and resistance, exploring notions of aquatic journeys and migratory routes to London, particularly for Black diasporic communities. Guided by the hydro-feminist notion that all bodies of water are connected, this new work is conceived as ‘a call to the surface,’ an invitation to collective consciousness about the world we inhabit together
For the 42nd edition of the pocket Tube map, American artist Ellen Gallagher will invite viewers on a journey. Gallagher describes her artistic process as driven by a ‘jitter’ which aims to shake loose aesthetic possibilities from seemingly impermeable cultural structures. Expanding on her interest in colonial topographies and marine mythology, Gallagher’s Tube map cover will explore notions of sediment and the subterranean waterways which run alongside the Underground tunnels. Launching in June, the 42nd pocket Tube map will remain in circulation for a year
A new audio work by London-based composer, artist and DJ Ain Bailey, her first UK public artwork, will launch in in late June. It is the third audio artwork commission in a series for Waterloo Underground station with the Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme. Bailey’s audio work for Waterloo undertakes an autobiographical mapping of London. Featuring an original composition and recording by London-born British-Caribbean experimental vocalist and movement artist Elaine Mitchener, the commission will pay homage to a list of more than 60 London premises that have now closed. Highlighting the far-reaching development of the city, which has driven closures particularly over the past 15 years, Bailey’s commission will respond to ideas of cultural lifecycles. It will ask how an artwork, or the activity of cultural spaces, both those lost and which remain active, produce experiences of collectively that don’t occur spontaneously, for example when moving through public space
A large-scale commission by Scottish painter Caroline Walker will launch at Stratford station in September. Walker is renowned for her figurative paintings depicting the lived experience of women. Working across a range of scales, her larger-scale works capture women in moments of action or contemplation, the visual complexity of their surroundings mirroring that of their imagined inner lives to create cinematic tableaus.
For her Art on the Underground commission, Walker will explore the often-invisible labour of women working on TfL’s networks at night. Following visits to Stratford Market Depot, where all Jubilee line trains return each evening to be cleaned and maintained, Walker has shadowed women working night shifts as Train Operators and cleaners. This new work for Stratford station will illuminate the Underground’s 24-hour workforce and the women whose unseen labour keeps the network running
For the tenth Brixton Mural, a new commission by internationally renowned British painter Hurvin Anderson. His site-specific work for Brixton Underground station will extend a decades-long investigation into scenes of transit and migration. It opens in the same year as his major survey exhibition at Tate Britain. Anderson’s paintings frequently reflect on diasporic life in the UK, and the postcolonial Caribbean landscape, drawing upon his upbringing in Birmingham by Jamaican parents, and time spent in Trinidad. A monumental 16-panel painting ‘Passenger Opportunity,’ inspired by Carl Abrahams’ murals for Kingston Jamaica’s Norman Manley International Airport, is notable amongst the artist’s explorations of diasporic experience, reflecting on cultural exchange and displacement. Anderson’s commission for Brixton draws upon a close connection to the area, in which the artist has lived for extended periods, holding a studio in Tulse Hill since 1998. It is the tenth artwork in a commission series responding to the diverse narratives of local murals painted in the 1980s, and rapid development of the area, which has been a hub for Black communities over the past 75 years
Last year Art on the Underground celebrated its 25th anniversary along with Transport for London. The programme’s groundbreaking permanent pieces include Alexandre da Cunha’s kinetic sculpture at Battersea Power Station Underground station, Mark Wallinger’s ‘Labyrinth’ across London Underground network, and the mosaic ‘Angels of History’ by Hastings and Quinlan at St James’s Park station.
In 2025, Art on the Underground worked with Rudy Loewe on a mural at Brixton London Underground station, the ninth in the series Brixton Mural Programme commissions and succeeding works by artists including Claudette Johnson, Joy Labinjo and Njideka Akunyili Crosby. In September, multidisciplinary artist Ahmet Öğüt launched a large-scale artwork at Stratford, Rory Pilgrim was the second artist commissioned to create a sound artwork for Waterloo Underground station with the Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme in the summer, and American artist Agnes Denes designed the 41st pocket Tube map that launched in the spring.
