Steve McQueen, Year Three, Tate Britain

If you dug out your class photograph from under the bed or the back of the cupboard, what memories would it bring back? Perhaps the smell of the school hall, of parquet floors and school dinners. And where are your classmates now? What happened to the kid with the moth-eaten jumper, or the confident one who always had her hand up in class? It was with a hint of nostalgia, and an eye to the future, that artist Steve McQueen embarked on his project Year 3, bringing contemporary class photographs to Tate Britain, and it was a gargantuan task.


Tyssen Community Primary School. © Steve McQueen & Tate

McQueen invited every Year Three pupil in London to have their photograph taken by a team of Tate photographers for an exhibition that explores the varied face of the capital. These class portraits, with their teachers placed at the centre, form a document, a snapshot in time, but they also give us a glimpse of the future. Smiling back at us are future executives, musicians, scientists and writers. Here are politicians, teachers, nurses and parents in the making. This project is full of hope, a celebration of London's diversity, and the exhibition promises to provide a perfect antidote to these pessimistic times and to make sure that message reaches every corner of London Artangel is displaying these images publicly across London’s 33 boroughs from 4-18 November.