The wonder of water: Phoebe Boswell's Art on the Underground project

Phoebe Boswell's new Art on the Underground commission was unveiled in late March 2026. The large-scale photographic work, titled we move through scales of blue, is on view in London at Bethnal Green and Notting Hill Gate tube stations for two years, as commuters descend and ascend the escalators.

Installation view, 'Phoebe Boswell: we move through scales of blue', London, 2026

This new work draws from the statistic that 95 per cent of Black British adults do not swim, which Boswell explores by thinking of the underground as a hidden site of lost waterways. The work emerged following a call out to local swimming communities and features layered photographic images of Black swimmers across London.

Boswell's multidisciplinary practice includes painting, drawing, video, animation and sound, with much of her recent work examining water as a site of both joy and pain.

we move through scales of blue clearly asks us to think about water as a space linked to migration and movement. I spoke to the artist about how the work came about, her interest in Black swimming communities and the public nature of this new piece.

The installation we move through scales of blue came about when Sasha Morse, the curator of Art on the Underground, came to Phoebe Boswell's studio.

'I remember it being a really rigorous studio visit, with lots of alignments in what we were both thinking about, and just a really penetrating conversation around my research around water,' Boswell tells me. 'That led to the invitation.'

The artist knew about Art on the Underground and was offered two spaces in Bethnal Green and Notting Hill Gate. Also, one of the previous artists commissioned to make works for these sites was Barby Asante, one of Boswell's dearest friends.

'So, I knew the space well, and it feels lovely that I'm kind of taking it on from Barby. I really loved the idea that they were going to be kinetic spots where commuters' movement could affect the experience of the artwork. The starting point was our conversations around water and the site specificity of these escalators.'

In and out of water

Boswell and Morse decided early on that the commission would be related to other work the artist was focusing on in her studio.

Boswell had previously created work for the Lyon Biennial, in 2022, when, for the first time, she started thinking about the statistic that 95 per cent of Black British adults can't swim or don't swim. And that idea resurfaced as she was working in her studio and brainstorming with the curator.

'I wanted to invite people to bring their loved ones to help each other feel safe in the water,' she says. 'The piece became an audiovisual immersive installation, where these couples were involved in what turned into a sort of underwater ballet of courage and fear, all merging together in learning to swim or feeling more comfortable in water.'

She wanted to find people in England's Black communities who already felt an affinity with the subject. The result is mostly photographic, finalised digitally.

Boswell worked with teams, including stills and video crews, and invited people to an underwater film studio.

'When each person was in the water, I invited them through prompts to explore and experience in their body different notions of play, memory, and other things that came out through the making.'

As part of her practice, Boswell paints and draws, and so she put the images together into what became this long 'tableaux', which, she says, has a 'very painterly, fresco quality'.

'I wanted the images to feel real, so I kept them photographic. But I also wanted a loose placelessness to them.'

The teams reached out to many Black swimming communities through leisure centres and other spaces.

'That was something Art on the Underground really helped me with,' Boswell adds. 'I wanted as wide a range of people as possible, of various ages. The youngest was one or two. And then their elders are also in the work.'

An invitation to connect

Most people came individually, but some came with a mother or a daughter; a couple was photographed with their child.

'What was really apparent was how each person brought so much of themselves to the work,' Boswell insists.

'And, because of the nature of the space, on the underground, I immediately thought of using the long 20-metre panels to create these Muybridge-esque animation sequences, playing with the fluidity and liquidity of water.'

The result suggests that people can flow in and out, and become one another.

'I wanted it to be a celebration of people who already have their own relationship to water and bring that knowledge with them to the work.'

While the images celebrate our relationship to water, as a key part of our human experience, Boswell is mindful of many people's ambivalence to water – particularly in the context of Black experience.

'I didn't want to tell anyone they should feel safer in the water because there are so many reasons why we don't,' Phoebe confesses. 'It relates to history, the legacy of migrations that has not always been good, even just the fluidity of diasporic identities.'

The artist thought of water as 'a metaphorical site for the place between here and there', so that it can become 'a really contentious, hopeful but also traumatic site, where you have to remember what is still in there, what has been placed, what has come to pass in the water.'

And she also sees water as 'a site for non-citizenship', where people are not thinking about 'land-based notions of belonging', she explains.

'Water can be all of these things. It goes through us. It is us. We're made of it. The water in the ocean links to every other body of water, so all of these things link us together in a collective.'

Boswell was born in Kenya, grew up in the Persian Gulf, on the island of Bahrain, and her mother now lives in Zanzibar, near the Indian Ocean, so this body of water has long been a source of healing for her.

'It's a site I go to unwind,' she continues. 'It speaks to me in many ways.'

But she also understands how other people, especially Black British people born in the UK, may lack similar experiences.

'I wanted to try and understand the complexities of all of us, the dualities, the liberating liquid of not being fully static, being able to exist in a more fluid place.'

'So, there's the literal sense of water, but also the metaphorical liminal space of water, fluidity, flowing, and how it links us all in a collective energy.'

Kind of blues

Boswell's underground commission is made up of various blues and browns.

'When I was with the camera team and we were thinking about lighting for the shoot, there were lots of reference points. One of the main references was a painting of mine… Love's Promise to the Weather.'

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The team wanted to capture different skin tones, and some of the blues and turquoises representing water.

'That came about during the shoot, and then, in the edit process, we pushed the colours through digital paint and other ways to isolate them. Even if digital, it still has a very painterly process.'

What also interested the artist straight away was the public nature of the creation.

'You're making this work for an audience outside of the art space,' Boswell explains. 'It's not an audience that has consented to come to see your work. They haven't asked for it necessarily, and you're speaking to a wide range of people. That was always fascinating in terms of what your responsibility is as the person placing something into a public space.'

The result is thus movement-based. Each person moving up and down the escalator creates a pathway, or a cinematic illusion.

'They're public works, so they can become part of the architecture of the underground, for a while, but it's also fluid,' Phoebe concludes, 'not something that has to stay, like a statue.'

Melissa Chemam, writer, cultural journalist, reporter

Phoebe Boswell's commission for Art on the Underground, we move through scales of blue, is on view at Bethnal Green and Notting Hill Gate Stations, London

This content was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies

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