ExhibitionLondon · On the Fourth Plinth now
Tschabalala Self's Lady in Blue on Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth, London
Curator Priya Khanchandani argues that Self's striding bronze woman belongs among the admirals and generals of Trafalgar Square.
Since September, the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square has held Lady in Blue by Tschabalala Self: a bronze Black woman caught mid-stride, one leg pushing through a vivid blue dress, hair piled high, her gaze fixed down Whitehall. In a Dezeen opinion piece, writer and curator Priya Khanchandani, formerly head of curatorial at the Design Museum, makes the case for why she belongs there, after her own post about the unveiling drew more than 6,000 comments, many of them racist.
Her argument rests on the square itself. Laid out by Charles Barry in 1840 as a neoclassical stage for imperial Britain, it is ringed by George IV on horseback, the generals Havelock and Napier, and Nelson on his column. Yet it has always been reshaped by protest and festivals, and by Foster + Partners' 2003 pedestrianisation. Self's figure shares their bronze but not their stillness, moving like the crowds below, while the lapis-like blue talks to the Western canon rather than against it. Self has called her an "everywoman".
Khanchandani places the work alongside earlier commissions such as Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant and Yinka Shonibare's ship in a bottle. It's free to see on any walk through the square; stop, look up, and decide for yourself.
Our summary of a story from Dezeen, published 30 October 2026. Read the original
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From Dezeen