Öğüt often uses humour and interventions to offer commentary on serious or pressing social and political issues. His new commission, 'Saved by the Whale’s Tail, Saved by Art', explores the role art plays in everyday life.
'Saved by the Whale's Tail, Saved by Art' includes a major art installation at Stratford Underground station which will be unveiled in September 2025, alongside a call out to the public for stories that champion, interrogate and celebrate how art has saved lives. Posters will be displayed across the entire London Underground network for two months from 2 April 2025, they will ask the public to submit their stories of how art has saved them to the New Contemporaries website.
Öğüt’s commission, which explores the power of art, is inspired by an incident that occurred near Rotterdam in 2020. With compelling visual metaphor for the power of art to save lives, the project seeks to uncover many more stories at a time when the arts are radically underfunded and undervalued.
“An artist is not someone who is by default marginalized from society as a radical thinker, a gifted outsider, or a mysterious loner. An artist is also a friend, a comrade, a mother, a sibling—someone who is part of the community and an integral part of the social fabric. Artists are often seen as those who pose questions without providing answers, or as individuals who can address issues only symbolically, without the ability to fix the world. However, the role of art and artists goes far beyond that. There are artworks and artists who have had a real, transformative impact on society." Ahmet Öğüt.
This project is generously supported by the Henry Moore Foundation and Reed Employment.
