Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen will present his long-awaited film about the Grenfell Tower fire at the Serpentine Galleries in London next month (Grenfel, April 7-May 10). McQueen was able to film the tower from a helicopter in December 2017 before scaffolding was erected around the crumbling building. The 24-minute work, self-financed by McQueen, will enter the collections of the Tate and the Museum of London after the Serpentine exhibition.
In June 2017, 72 people died in the fire that broke out at the 23-storey tower block in west London. Among those who died was British-Gambian artist Khadija Sayewho exhibited works in the Diaspora pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2017.
“I feared that once the tower was covered, it would only be a matter of time before it faded from public memory. In fact, I imagine a lot of people expected that to be the case. I was determined that he would never be forgotten. So my decision was made for me. Remember,” McQueen said in a statement. The film is dedicated to the 72 people who died in the fire, the bereaved and the survivors, he adds.
The Guardian reports that the film is “without words or music, McQueen’s camera pans tirelessly around the council block, often up close, allowing viewers to see into rooms where people have died and forensic investigators in white suits examining the evidence.”
In 2020, the Grenfell Next of Kin support group, made up of the immediate family members of 33 people who died in the 2017 fire, said they felt “totally helpless” by the McQueen project.
A project statement reads: “McQueen has had conversations with groups of Grenfell mourners and survivors and individuals in the wider community at various times over the past five and a half years. Serpentine and Steve McQueen engaged in these discussions so that Grenfell is delivered with sensitivity and with the considerations of the bereaved and survivors at the forefront.
The first phase of the government investigation into the disaster concluded in 2019; the findings of the second phase are expected to be released later this year. Last November, the investigation was closed after 400 days of evidence. Richard Millett KC, the inquest counsel, used his closing statement to state: “Each of the deaths that occurred at Grenfell Tower on June 14, 2017 were preventable.”
