The Tate Year 3 Project was an ambitious project that took place between September 2018 and January 2020 to create Steve McQueen Year 3 – a giant collective portrait of 7-8-year-olds by the London-born Turner Prize-winning artist and Oscar-winning filmmaker, Steve McQueen.
Project partners Tate, Artangel, and A New Direction invited every primary school in London to take part to create an epic picture of the city’s present and an intimation of the future. 76,146 children from 1,504 schools took part in photography sessions in which a traditional class photograph was taken. These would form part of the exhibitions both in the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, and the Outdoor Exhibition on 600 billboards across London in Autumn 2019.
A New Direction has commissioned this collection of nine essays to reflect on the Tate Year 3 Project from different perspectives and provoke thinking about future projects. Together, the essays explore the themes of representation, entitlement, access, collaboration, and risk.
Download the full set of essays
Contributors and writers: Anna Cutler, Aoife O’Doherty, Christine Lai, Colin Grant, David Parker, Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, Eileen Carnell, Jack Redfern, Jackie Benjamin, James Broadley, James Lingwood, Kate Atkins, Maria Balshaw, Marina Lewis-King, Pauline Tambling, Steve Moffitt, Tate Schools and Teachers Team
Edited by Naranee Ruthra-Rajan
Download the individual essays below
1. A Year With Year 3
by Marina Lewis-King
Creating a positive experience for the young people as participants.
2. Participation Begins With Me: Reflections From Tate and School Headteachers on Year 3
by David Parker
Engaging schools to take part.
3. Out of the Shadows
by Colin Grant
Representation in art exhibitions.
4. Across the Imaginative Threshold of the Future of Cultural Equity
by Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski
Entitlement and access to culture for young people and communities.
5. Year 3: Achieving Scale and Quality in a Cultural Endeavour
by Pauline Tambling
Reflections to inform future projects working at scale.
6. Year 3: Elements of Risk
by Anna Cutler
Overcoming challenges with collaborative partners.
7. We Are Here! Observations and Analysis of the Year 3 Class Visits
by Tate Schools and Teachers Team with Eileen Carnell
Welcoming students to an art gallery and the impacts.
8. Young Londoners’ Perspectives on Steve McQueen Year 3
by Christine Lai, James Broadley and Aoife O’Doherty
The need for representation and young people’s entitlement to arts & culture.
9. Why Did We Do This, and What Did We Learn? Reflections From Lead Partners
by David Parker with Anna Cutler, James Lingwood and Steve Moffitt
Using the emerging themes to learn and think to the future.
