Steve McQueen’s epic Year 3 project was installed across over 600 billboards throughout all 33 of London’s boroughs making it one of the most ambitious visual portraits of citizenship ever undertaken, in one of the world’s largest and most diverse cities. The billboards featured huge class photos of year 3 school children from London primary schools. Year 3 is considered a milestone year in a child’s development and sense of identity, when children aged 7–8 years old become more conscious of a much larger world beyond their immediate family. Year 3 is both a celebration of the young people who will make the city their own, and a meditation on the personal circumstances and social forces that shape all our lives. The billboards were installed on the side of the road, on railway platforms, and at London Underground stations for most of November 2019.
All the school photos were presented together in a large-scale installation at Tate Britain 12 November 2019 – 3 May 2020 Steve McQueen Year 3 was a partnership between Tate, Artangel and A New Direction