NOW OPEN: Expression of Interest – Outdoor Permanent Public Art - 2D Artwork .

Expression of Interest – Outdoor Permanent Public Art - 2D Artwork

Praed Street Public Art Programme

Westminster, Installation date November 2026 – permanent artwork. 

Deadline for Expression of Interest: 5.00pm (GMT), Friday 24 April 2026.

Westminster City Council (WCC) have appointed leading cultural studio LACUNA to support the Council to deliver a series of public art commissions across Praed Street over the next two years. 

WHO IS WESTMINSTER CITY COUNCIL?

Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster, located in the heart of London. Home to over 250,000 residents and welcoming millions of visitors each year, the city sees around one million people pass through its streets every day. The Council is committed to delivering high-quality, responsive services that support the needs of residents, businesses, and visitors alike. From housing, education, and public health to social care, environmental sustainability, and keeping the streets clean and safe, Westminster City Council works hard to ensure the city remains a welcoming and accessible place where people can thrive and enjoy a high quality of life.

www.westminster.gov.uk

@citywesminster.

WHAT IS THE AMIBITION FOR THE PUBLIC ART PROGRAMME?

In 2023, WCC launched the Westminster High Streets Programme, a new borough-wide programme to support high streets become more diverse, resilient, and sustainable. The vision is to make them the backbone of thriving neighbourhoods where goods, services and green spaces are a walking distance from residents’ doorsteps. To deliver on this ambition, they created the Westminster High Streets Framework which sets out the vision for high streets across the borough. The framework covers three over-arching objectives:

• Safe, Sustainable & Welcoming Places
• Vibrant & Resilient Economy
• Connected Communities 

Paddington – Bayswater was one of the three priority areas to roll out the programme, with £10 million capital funding committed to delivering a range of projects across these local high streets, including Edgware Road, Praed Street, Queensway, Westbourne Grove and Porchester Road.

During the summer of 2023, the Council conducted their public engagement to hear from residents, visitors and business owners about their views and ambitions for the future of Paddington – Bayswater’s local high streets. 

You can find out more information here: paddington-bayswaterhighstreets.commonplace.is/ 

This expression of interest public art programme sits within the Praed Street area. 

In summary of the community’s feedback, the priorities were: 

Creating a welcoming and safe street environment

• Provide spaces to dwell and socialise 
• Incorporate more planting and green spaces
• Consider outdoor spaces for local events and services such as markets and festivals
• Improve safety during the day and night
• Improve walking experience
• Improve street aesthetics and maintain shopfront

Diversifying the high street’s uses and improving its retail offer

• Diversify uses and retail offer to include health and wellbeing facilities
• Support a mix of chain and independent shops
• Enhance the range of essential products and services to cater to varying income
• Provide flexible workspace for start-ups and/or local creative businesses
• Provide opportunities for upskilling and training

Creating opportunities for social interactions and cultural activity

• Introduce and sustain cultural and artistic spaces
• Create family-friendly spaces and spaces for the youth
• Support social cohesion through social initiatives and services 

PRAED STREET OVERVIEW

Praed Street, named after William Praed, the chairman of the company that built the Paddington Basin, was laid out in the early 19th century. 

The area around Praed Street has a high density of hotels. Paddington Station is now the second busiest railway station in London, with 109 million railway and underground entries and exits annually, and around 16,000 daily Heathrow Express users. According to on-street surveys, most participants said that Praed Street is a place for social encounters: meeting people (28%), enjoying leisure during the day (31%), and at night (36%). Similar to Edgware Road, 22% of participants visit Praed Street for work, and 13% use its retail offerings for everyday essentials and services. 

Praed Street in Paddington, London, is an area rich in history, originally dating back to the early 19th Century when the Paddington Basin was first developed. The Grand Junction Canal Company oversaw the construction of the Basin, a significant moment that marked the area as a key gateway into London, improving trade routes and industry and encouraging the growth of national and international communities. Praed Street was created in 1828 and named after William Praed, the chairman of the Canal Company. 

The area is renowned for being home of Paddington Station, one of the UK’s busiest and most iconic railway stations. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the station first opened in 1854, setting a precedent for its expansion and development to become the bustling hub it is today. A short walk from Paddington Station is St. Mary’s Hospital on Praed Street, where Sir. Alexander Fleming made his revolutionary discovery of penicillin in 1928. Today, the Alexander Fleming Laboratory Museum is located within the hospital and serves to commemorate this moment in science with plans for the redevelopment of the Fleming Centre also confirmed. A new research and public engagement facility on the St Mary’s Hospital campus will build on this legacy by focusing on developing solutions to antimicrobial resistance.

Barbara Hepworth in Paddington

The sculptor Barbara Hepworth (1903–75) and her work is indelibly linked to the landscape of St Ives and West Yorkshire, to the extent that we rather overlook the fact she was also a metropolitan artist and that London was significant in the overall narrative of her career. She studied at the Royal College of Art in the 1920s and had her first commercial shows. In 1928 she moved to 7 The Mall where she lived and worked for eleven years, helping to establish Hampstead as an internationally important artistic community until the advent of war.

Having left in 1939, London remained the site of some of Hepworth’s most important exhibitions and major public sculpture projects across the 1950s and 60s. She took part in the Festival of Britain, and the first outdoor sculpture exhibitions in Battersea and Holland Park, and received two major commissions for public sculpture. She also had two survey exhibitions at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and a retrospective at the Tate Gallery. An increasingly successful career entailed frequent travel from the South West of England via Paddington Station. Indeed at Paddington — presumably, whilst waiting for a train — Hepworth made one of the first drawings in her famous ‘hospital’ series, which she inscribed ‘Sketch made in notebook Padd. St. Nov. 14th 1947’. This was developed into the painting Theatre Group I (1947), now in the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario.

In the 1960s, the increasing demands of a successful career required extended stays in London. Having been made the first woman trustee at the Tate Gallery, for example, she made numerous visits to the capital for almost monthly board meetings and she chose to stay at the then Great Western Royal Hotel; one of the first of the Victorian railway hotels it was smart and obviously convenient. For nearly ten years, the hotel became the centre of Hepworth’s art-based social life in London — her secretary kept an engagement book which includes a visit from the film director Billy Wilder — but was also a vital staging post for Hepworth, where she could also manage her career.

Being in transit did not mean she was able to stop running her studio or control her output in St Ives. Correspondence addressed to her at the hotel, and the replies sent by her, reveal how much of her professional life was conducted from her hotel room. Amongst these was one of Hepworth’s greatest achievements, her Single Form (1961–64) outside the United Nations headquarters in New York. This monumental public sculpture was commissioned in memorium of Dag Hammarskjöld (the second Secretary General and Hepworth’s friend).

The plaster prototype was made in St Ives but the bronze casting was undertaken by Morris Singer foundry (then based in London), a process supervised closely by Hepworth and which took ten months. In 4 April 1964, writing on the hotel’s letter-headed paper, Hepworth described her feelings about the work as it approached the finishing stages: The sculpture was looking marvellous to-night… it looks like a great rock & I was terribly pleased. It is strange how after 20 months hard work one only sees the real work when the final touches take place!

Dr Stephen Feeke

December 2025.

ARTWORK CRITERIA

• Contemporary work
• 2D Artwork (either mural or vinyl application only)
• High impact work
• One site specific artwork. Please note, there may be an opportunity for a secondary wall to be introduced into the artist brief later in the process. With this, we would like to see the two walls have a dialogue between each other. 
• Work that can be displayed in an inclusive and accessible way (inclusive of no nudity, no religious or political content). 
• Work which is reflective of the three key areas of feedback provided by the community (Creating a welcoming and safe street environment, Diversifying the high street’s uses and improving its retail offer, Creating opportunities for social interactions and cultural activity). 

Key stories and themes which applicants may choose to consider are:

• Local History: reflection of Praed Street’s historical significance as gateway into London, Paddington Station, Alexander Fleming, St. Marys Hospital.
• Health and Wellbeing: by recognising the importance of medical innovation, Alexander Fleming, St. Mary’s Hospital, new Fleming Centre.
• Transport & Movement: canals, Paddington Station, Brunel, flow of people.
• Community: celebrating the current people who live, work and shape the area.

COMMUNITY GROUPS

We invite applicants to research and propose engaging the local community in whatever way suits their own research interests and artistic practice. As a starting point, local groups that might be of interest to engage might include: 

• Hyde Park Residents Association
• HyPER
• SEBRA
• PRACT (transport)
• Paddington Waterways and Maida Vale Society (W9W2)
• Friends of St Mary’s Hospital
• Local Primary Schools
•  Local Area Youth Groups

ARTWORK LOCATION

At present, there is one wall identified which offers as an ideal backdrop for storytelling on Praed Street: 7-9 Praed Street, W219J.

 Please refer to the Gallery for an image of the Artwork Location. 

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Only entries with the following requirements will be considered:

1. Submissions that meet the criteria
2. A fully completed expression of interest form 
3. We only accept a maximum of one application per artist. Any artist exceeding the limit will be automatically disqualified.

We encourage all artists, whose work meets the above criteria, to apply. WCC is an inclusive and diverse community; artists of all races, genders, disabilities and identities are invited to apply.

If you have any access needs you would like to share with us, please email alice@lacuna-projects.com  

CONTACT

For questions please contact: Alice Sandon, Arts Producer, LACUNA: alice@lacuna-projects.com 

Applications must be submitted via curatorspace.com 

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 5.00pm (GMT), Friday 24 April 2026.

SELECTION PROCESS

Submitted expression of interests will be presented for shortlisting to the Jury Panel.

Three shortlisted artists will then be invited to lead community workshops (as detailed in their proposal) and finally present a mock-up of the final artwork to the jury panel, where a winner will be selected. 

Themes can be developed and refined through a series of community workshops with residents, businesses and other key stakeholders. These workshops are expected to create spaces for the exchange of ideas and development of a shared vision for the area.

Following the winner being selected, the project team liaises with the landowner and negotiates with the local authority legislative teams, as well as engineering and installation team. When this process is complete, meeting the conditions of the budget, the final artwork selection will be announced. 

KEY DATES

Friday 24 April 2026, 5.00pm (GMT) – deadline for submissions

April - May 2026 – shortlisting process

May 2026 – notification of successful shortlisted applicants 

May- June 2026 – community workshops

Early July 2026 – shortlisted artists present to the jury panel

Mid July 2026 – winner announced

End July – end of October 2026 – planning permission & approvals

End of October - November 2026 - Fabrication 

November 2026 – installation of artwork

November 2026 – exhibition opening 

CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION

The artwork is commissioned by Westminster City Council and covers all associated costs including artist fee, materials, fabrication, insurance and maintenance costs. 

Westminster City Council alongside LACUNA work with professional and experienced muralists and art handlers. 

The artwork must be suitable for outdoor display in the public realm as a permanent 2D artwork display. 

Participating artists and associated galleries receive full credit on all marketing and press materials and invitation to the official launch of the installation. 

Shortlisted artists will receive an artist fee of £5,000 each to deliver a community workshop, develop their artistic concept & proposal, and present to the jury panel. 

Final selected artist will further receive a fee of £15,000 to further develop their artistic concept & proposal, and work with the muralists or art handlers to install the final artwork. The artist fee will be increased by £5,000 to £20,000 should a secondary wall be introduced. Please note, this is not a new artwork and rather an extension of the original artwork.

HOW TO SUBMIT 

Applications must be submitted via curatorspace.com. 

For questions please contact: Alice Sandon, Arts Producer, LACUNA: alice@lacuna-projects.com

Please review this document and the FAQs before contacting the Arts Producer.

ABOUT LACUNA 

LACUNA is a leading cultural studio realising contemporary art and events in urban spaces and local communities. Led by Founding Director, Stella Ioannou, it works with a core team of project associates, including Arts Producer, Alice Sandon and Studio Manager, Rachel Ball.

@lacunaprojects  / LinkedIn / lacuna-projects.com

THE JURY PANEL

Members of the Jury Panel:

• The jury panel includes representatives from the following organisations: 
• Paddington NOW
• Prime Commercial Properties PLC
• Transport for London
• Imperial Trust Charity
• HPEA (Hyde Park Estate Association)
• HyPER (Hype Park Estate Residents)
• Westminster City Council
• A Local Student  

Photo Credits

• Praed Street, August 2025. Courtesy LACUNA. Photo © Rachel Ball. 
• Programme Area.
• Barbara Hepworth, Reconstruction, 1947 © Bowness, Hepworth Estate / Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London
• 7-9 Praed Street, W2 1NJ. Photo © LACUNA
• Artwork Location Map.