'Spectacular' new public art installation commissioned from Scottish Turner Prize winner

The new work by Jasleen Kaur, titled Superstructure, is a trail of eight weathervane-like sculptures installed at key sights along the River Clyde. It will be unveiled on 18 June in a commission for the city by Glasgow 2026 Festival.

Ms Kaur won the prestigious prize in 2024 for her solo exhibition Alter Altar, which includes an installation of a car with a giant doily on it. She was praised for her use of “playful combinations of material”, from Irn-Bru to family photographs and a vintage Ford Escort.

The artist said her new work, which explores Glasgow’s history of trade, industry and empire, invited residents to read Glasgow’s infrastructure differently.

It is one of the signature commissions of Glasgow 2026 Festival, a ten-week celebration of Glasgow’s culture, creativity and people.

Each sculpture bears a word or phrase that turns in the wind, pointing across the city, simultaneously to its past and future.

Ms Kaur said: “The words turn in the wind, pointing to different geographies at different moments. At any given time, they might be pointing to here, there, and everywhere. They invite us to read the city differently – to think about the river not just as an asset but as something that tells a story of power, possession and people’s entire life journeys.”

The festival runs from 23 May to 9 August 2026 as part of the Commonwealth Games.

Installed along a stretch of the north bank of the Clyde, from Tradeston towards the Kingston Bridge, and embedded into the landscape, Kaur’s sculptures also respond to contemporary use of the river corridor as a place of movement: for walking, cycling and gathering, as well as contemplation.

The commission extends themes present in Ms Kaur’s permanent public artwork Was. Is. Will Be, a text-based commission for Thamesmead, London, amplifying the idea of rivers as witnesses, routes and agents of history.

Born in Glasgow with longstanding family ties to Govan and the Clyde, the project marks a return to the city for Ms Kaur, who is now based in London and whose career has developed rapidly following her Turner Prize win in 2024.

Chris Ansell, head of public engagement for Glasgow 2026 said: “Glasgow is famous for its creativity, spark and energy, and Glasgow 2026 Festival will put that on the global stage once again. Across ten weeks, the programme moves from the spectacular to the intimate: flagship commissions, major partnerships and community-led moments with unmistakably Glaswegian personality celebrate the city’s rich cultural diversity and international contemporary art and music.”

“Glasgow 2026 is also a moment to look honestly at the city’s story and its relationship with the Commonwealth’s complex past. In the Festival, artists present work that not only acknowledges and explores that history but creates space to meaningfully engage with it.”

Bailie Annette Christie, chair of Glasgow Life and City Convener for Culture, Sport and International Relations said: “Jasleen Kaur is delivering a spectacular public artwork that manages the seemingly impossible task of tying Glasgow, the River Clyde, and the Commonwealth together in a way that reflects their shared history and the present. 

 “As part of the Glasgow 2026 Festival, this commission also celebrates the creativity of the city that has a global international reputation for nurturing and developing artists. The new City Development Plan 2 approved earlier this week also includes proposals for a Public Art Strategy that would embed cultural policy into the city’s architecture, planning, and development frameworks. Jasleen Kaur’s work will inspire even more people in Glasgow this summer and delight residents and visitors alike.”

Ms Kaur has made the work in a collaboration led by Glasgow-based Jude Barber of Collective Architecture, who specialise in conversation, public realm and cultural projects, and writer Louise Welsh, encouraging conversations about history, land, ownership, ecology and the ongoing effects of Empire.