Steve McQueen’s film installation Grenfell (2019), which shows the remains of the London tower block destroyed by a fire in 2017, will tour to six UK cities over the next three years.
Grenfell was first presented in 2023 at the Serpentine Galleries in London, and then entered the collections of the Tate and the London Museum. The national tour, backed by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and the Art Fund charity, is coordinated by Tate in collaboration with the partner venues.
The tour venues are Tramway, Glasgow, in partnership with The Common Guild (8–23 March); Chapter, Cardiff (10 May–15 June) and The MAC, Belfast (17 July–21 September). The work will also be shown next year at The Box, Plymouth and at Tate Liverpool, with exact dates to be announced. In 2027, Grenfell will be screened at the Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham.
Beginning on 14 June 2017, 72 people died in the fire which broke out in the 23-storey tower block located in west London. Among the people who died was the UK-Gambian artist Khadija Saye, who showed works in the Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017.
On 18 December 2017, McQueen, who was born nearby in a comparable housing estate, strapped himself into a helicopter which rose and flew low above London until it reached Grenfell Tower. There, it began to closely circle the now gutted building, often flying treacherously close.
The resulting 24-minute film shows us, in one unedited shot, the footage McQueen created that day. In it we glimpse, for the first time, the interiors of what is now essentially a pyre, as Grenfell Tower remains the final resting place for many of those who died that night. The film plays without words or music. Shortly after McQueen shot the footage, the building was encased in white hoardings, its interiors hidden from view.
Following the fire, a government inquiry was launched that was conducted in two phases. The findings of the first and second phase of the inquiry were reported last September. The process of implementing its recommendations remains ongoing, as does a criminal investigation.
The BBC says that the “final report sets out how a chain of failures across government and the private sector led to Grenfell Tower becoming a death trap”.
