Friday 19 Sep 2025
New artwork by Ahmet Öğüt launches at Stratford station reflecting on art’s power to save and transform
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- Artist Ahmet Öğüt’s new commission at Stratford station reflects on art’s power to save, transform and reshape people and their lives, co-commissioned by TfL’s Art on the Underground programme and New Contemporaries
- Öğüt was inspired by an incident in Rotterdam in 2020 when a giant whale sculpture saved a train that overran the stop blocks during a safety test
- An open call gathered hundreds of stories about art’s power to save and transform lives, with a moving story from a doctor included as part of the commission
- This year marks 25 years of both TfL and its Art on the Underground programme, which has enriched the journeys of billions of customers through murals, sculptures, sound installations and more
A story of how art can transform and save lives launched today at Stratford station as part of a participatory artwork by Ahmet Öğüt with Transport for London’s (TfL’s) Art on the Underground programme and emerging artist platform New Contemporaries, with a new visual artwork introduced on the station’s mezzanine.
Conceptual artist Öğüt initiated his commission in April 2025, inspired by an incident in Rotterdam in 2020 in which an out-of-service train overran the stop blocks at a station during a safety run and was saved from falling into the water below by a giant whale sculpture. Öğüt began to explore the role art plays in everyday life and whether art can cause transformation rather than just represent it. In April a poster campaign launched across the London Underground network, calling on the public to share stories of when art has saved, transformed or reshaped them.
From the open call New Contemporaries received hundreds of stories and a panel, including Öğüt, selected The Bracelet by doctor Helen Whitley as its winning story, which is included as part of the installation at Stratford station from today. The Bracelet’s message is: ‘Medicine teaches you to look fast. Art teaches you to look again,’ and calls on Whitley’s experience as a doctor and artist. The story, along with an interview with Öğüt and submissions from three runners-up, is available to read in a new free publication available at the station and online.
Depicting a whale’s tail emerging from the sea, a new artwork by Öğüt can be seen across Stratford station’s mezzanine, featuring Whitley’s story and Saved by Art, Saved by the Whale’s Tail installed on the balcony. Stratford station, which is served by DLR, Elizabeth line, London Overground and London Underground services, is one of the busiest stations in the UK, with more than 56 million entries and exits in 2024.
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. Öğüt’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.”
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 Öğüt 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."
Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said: “Art has the power to inspire and bring people together, and for 25 years we’ve seen how Art on the Underground has helped to transform journeys for millions every day. Saved by the Whale’s Tail is a fantastic new addition, and a great way to celebrate the role that art plays in our lives, as we build a better London for everyone.”
James Reed CBE, Chairman and CEO of REED, said: "We are delighted to be continuing our sponsorship of Art on the Underground in 2025. This important programme brings free, accessible, and significant public art to our capital city, improving our daily commutes and lives around London. I was very moved reading the winning and runner up stories selected by Ahmet Öğüt for Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art. These stories, submitted by the public, really demonstrate the transformative power of art to shape people’s lives, create meaning and bring people together."
This year, as TfL celebrates its 25th anniversary, Art on the Underground is also marking 25 years since it began commissioning site-specific artworks across the city. The changing programme of temporary works, alongside groundbreaking permanent pieces, including Alexandre da Cunha's kinetic sculpture at Battersea Power Station Underground station and Mark Wallinger's Labyrinth across London Underground network, speak to people, places, and histories, placing trust in artists and the creative process.
Alongside Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art, this year Art on the Underground has commissioned a new pocket Tube map by esteemed conceptual artist Agnes Denes, that has reimagined the globe in electrified form, and in November, a new mural will feature at Brixton London Underground station by Rudy Loewe.
Contact Information
TfL Press Office
Transport for London
0343 222 4141
pressoffice@tfl.gov.uk
Notes to editors
Biography
Born in Silvan, Diyarbakir, Ahmet Öğüt completed his BA from the Fine Arts Faculty at Hacettepe University, Ankara, MA from Art and Design Faculty at Yıldız Teknik University, Istanbul. Based in Amsterdam and Istanbul, he works across different media and has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions in institutions such as Van Abbemuseum, State of Concept Athens, Kunstverein Dresden, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Chisenhale Gallery; Berkeley Art Museum; and Kunsthalle Basel.
He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including; Singapore Biennale (2025); Translated into Socialism at Moderna galerija (MG+MSUM) Ljubljana (2025); Poetics of Power, Kunsthaus Graz, (2024); Allegory of public happiness, Galleria Civica di Trento (2024); Dhaka Art Summit (2023); 17th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, (2022); FRONT International 2022, Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Ohio (2022); Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone (2021); In the Presence of Absence, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2020); Zero Gravity at Nam SeMA, Seoul Museum of Art (2019); Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale (2018); the British Art Show 8
(2015-2017); the 13th Biennale de Lyon (2015); Performa 13, the Fifth Biennial of Visual Art Performance, New York (2013); the 7th Liverpool Biennial (2012); the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); the New Museum Triennial, New York (2009); and the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2008). Öğüt was awarded the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013); the special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012); the De Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs 2011, Netherlands; and the Kunstpreis Europas Zukunft, Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany (2010). He co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). His work is in institutional collections such as The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Kadist, San Francisco, US - Paris; Rennie Collection, Vancouver; Sammlung Goetz, Munich; Frans Hals Museum; FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque; Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis; KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Fondazione Giuliani, Rome; MSU Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul.
Art on the Underground
Art on the Underground is a pioneer in commissioning contemporary artworks that enrich the journeys of millions on the Tube every day. From large-scale commissions at Gloucester Road station to the pocket Tube map cover commissions, Art on the Underground has gathered a roll-call of the best artists over 15 years, maintaining art as a central element of Transport for London’s identity and engaging passengers and staff in a sense of shared ownership. Reed, the family-run recruitment and business services company, is Art on the Underground’s 2025 sponsor.
New Contemporaries
Founded in 1949 by artists and for artists, New Contemporaries is committed to fostering an environment where emerging and early-career artists are empowered to shape their own futures. We support emerging and early career artists through an annual artist development programme that culminates in a prestigious national touring exhibition, selected by internationally renowned artists. Our commitment to fostering the next generation of talent is amplified through our partnerships with major institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, MIMA Middlesbrough and South London Gallery. New Contemporaries is supported by Arts Council England, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Bridget Riley Art Foundation, Henry Moore Foundation, TFA London and Art Fund. This project is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.
The Winning Story
The Bracelet, by Helen Whitley
They were wheeling him toward MRI when I caught up. A trauma transfer from district general, unresponsive, GCS 6. CT brain bland as unbuttered toast. No next of kin, no wristband, no known history. The neuro team wanted urgent spine imaging to rule out cord compression. As I stepped to the side of the trolley, something caught the light – a faint glint on his wrist. Hand-beaten silver, etched with small geometric shapes like Kufic script. He lay motionless under the blanket, fingers pale and half-curled.
Now pause here. Because there’s a split second in which you don’t know whether what you’re seeing is important or just decorative. Medicine teaches you to look fast. Art teaches you to look again. I happen to be someone who spent years in Prague drawing doorways and Orthodox cemetery gates and who still, in the sweaty armpit hours of post-call insomnia, makes brooches out of copper and resin and reclaimed parts of antique watches. The bracelet looked like the tiles in the Alhambra, repeating arabesques, locked rhythms of symmetry. My mother would find crumpled graph paper in every pocket. ‘You have a pattern-seeking brain,’ she would say. ‘It’ll make you either an artist or a doctor.’ In the end, I became both.
I leaned closer. The design wasn’t abstract.
PACEMAKER – Implanted 2019
I shouted: ‘Stop the trolley!’ and everything in the corridor jerked to a halt. The porter stared. I peeled back the gown. There, barely visible under the skin, a surgical scar and slight bulge of the device beneath his left clavicle. We were this close to frying his heart with the magnet.
Later, someone says it was lucky. But it wasn’t luck. It was design. Because it turned out that bracelet was made by his daughter, a jewellery maker, who had taken care to create something beautiful. He’d refused to wear a plastic medical alert, so she designed something he’d wear every day. Something that could speak when he couldn’t. ‘I just wanted something he’d keep on’ she told me later, ‘Something that wouldn’t embarrass him.’
I’ve seen lives saved by major intervention. Emergency craniotomies, chest drains slammed in blind. But sometimes, it’s the small, human things that do it, a piece of silver, carefully crafted with love and foresight.
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