An underground display for Jade

The work of University of Central Lancashire artist Jade Monserrat will be seen by more than 25 million people as part of a London Underground art exhibition.

Jade, a PhD student, is one of an international selection of women artists taking part in the 2018 Art on the Underground exhibition, Transport for London’s public art programme.

Her work will be on the cover of more than 25 million copies of the London Tube map – and she is looking for help in creating a dialogue. The idea behind the initiative is to give space to the diverse public that make up society, addressing structural gender imbalance in the arts, particularly the public arts.

Jade’s art mainly focuses on race and representation in Northern Britain in the context of the Black Atlantic.

She is a member of UCLan’s Institute for Black Atlantic Research and her work ranges from performance and film to installation, sculpture and print.

Jade will decide later this year what pieces will appear on the tube map cover when it is re-printed in October.

She said: “I’m really thrilled. The most exciting part of it is applying the research to something that will be so widely disseminated.

“It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to share my work with so many people and a huge honour to be among such amazing artistic company.

“I’m thinking about my practice as creating a dialogue. I welcome as many conversations as possible through this process to ensure that a plurality of voices might enter into the final work for art on the underground.”

Other work will take up street level billboards and an ambitious sculpture will sit on an 80-metre long platform at Gloucester Road Station.