London Sculpture Week 2026 brings together five major exhibitions, transforming the city into an open-air gallery for the fifth time this September. Audiences can experience world-class outdoor artworks and hear directly from the artists and curators behind them. It features the famous Fourth Plinth, East Bank, Frieze Sculpture, Sculpture in the City and the Line, spotlighting the vital role of contemporary public art in modern life. Justine Simons, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, says: “Sculpture enriches our streets, parks and public spaces by transforming them into vast, free open-air art galleries for everyone to enjoy. It invites us to look with fresh eyes and discover the art that is all around us – celebrating the extraordinary variety of creativity, diversity and expression right on our doorstep, which makes our capital such a unique cultural city.” We spotlight five sculptures to see in the 2026 edition.
Rasheed Araeen | Untitled The Line (2025)
This sculpture is part of the The Line, an East London public art trail along the waterways and following the line of the Greenwich Meridian. Its outdoor exhibition programme presents 24 installations, offering a journey through a dynamic urban landscape where everyone can explore art, nature and heritage. Untitled The Line (2025) is one featured piece. It was created by Rasheed Araeen, an artist who trained as an engineer before moving to Europe in the 1960s to become one of the pioneers of minimalist sculpture in Britain. This large-scale work uses geometric steel cubes, painted in the artist’s distinct primary colours.
Thomson & Craighead | Here (2013)
Thomson & Craighead’s Here (2013), was originally conceived in 2011 as a virtual image, intended to mark the distance of the work from itself along a North/South axis. The physical sculpture, fabricated to UK road standards two years later, marks the 24,859 mile distance around the earth and back. When it was selected to be part of The Line, it’s location became particularly relevant, as it is situated on the Greenwich Meridian, which is located at 0 degrees longitude. Arts writer Maggie Grey said of its unveiling: “such pieces command attention and, once they have it, direct that attention outwards to their surroundings.”
Catriona Robertson | WYRM (2026)
WYRM is part of Frieze Sculpture’s 14th edition, featuring 11 international artists whose work is displayed throughout the historic English Gardens of The Regent’s Park, extending the reach of the Frieze art fairs into the public realm. The piece is part of Catriona Robertson’s wider practice, rooted in environment and heritage, and centred around the idea of “the urban landscape as a collage.” The artist responds to the interconnectedness of nature and the city, using reclaimed materials to reflect on our throwaway culture, where the bedrock beneath the future city will be made up of detritus from today’s world.
Zineb Sedira | Dreams Are a Language Made of Images (2025)
This large-scale, text installation makes up stop number 8 on The Line’s public art trail, made specifically for the location. The text is based on a quote from the Italian filmmaker, Federico Fellini, who was most famous for his 1960s films, including La Dolce Vita. The work encourages reflection about the interrelationship between dreams and cinema, recurring themes in Sedira’s practice, but here there is the added element of the river. The artist notes: “Rivers are forever changing and moving. Like dreams, they are not fixed. Rivers are places of mobility, routes to other countries, other worlds, other dreams.”
Ai Weiwei | Roots: Palace (2019)
Ai Weiwei’s monumental piece, displayed as part of Sculpture in the City, is made from iron, cast from giant tree roots sources in Brazil during research and production for another project. The artist worked with local artisans and communities across the country, visiting Trancoso in the east to locate roots and trunks from the endangered Pequi Vinagreiro tree, typically found in the Bahian rainforest. Elements of these rare tree roots, some of which could be over a thousand years old, were painstakingly moulded, conjoined and then cast to create striking compositions and bold forms that reflect their Brazilian heritage.
London Sculpture Week 2026 takes place from 19 – 27 September: londonsculptureweek.org
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1&5. Zineb Sedira, Dreams Are a Language Made of Images (2025). Aluminium composite material, stainless steel, aluminium and LED lighting 3.75 x 19.4 x 15.7m.
2. Rasheed Araeen, Untitled The Line, (2025). Painted steel 183 x 183 x 183cm.
3.Thomson & Craighead, Here (2013). Custom signpost 264 ×82 ×12cm. North Greenwich. Courtesy the artists. Photograph by Luis Veloso.
4. Catriona Robertson WYRM (2026). The Muse Gallery (London). English Gardens, The Regent’s Park, NW1 4LL. Photo: Saatchi Gallery Garden, RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Photography Stephen Studd. Courtesy of the artist and The Muse Gallery.
6. Ai Weiwei, Roots: Palace (2019). Cast iron141 x 250 x 195cm. St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate Churchyard, EC2M 3TL © Ai Weiwei Studio; Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio, Lisson Gallery, and neugerriemschneider, Berlin. Photo © Nick Turpin.
