Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke (b. 1959) was born in Edinburgh but spent his formative years in Guyana before returning to the UK to study at Falmouth School of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. His sculptures and installations engage with themes of colonial and post-colonial power, appropriating and recontextualising the symbols through which nations assume and assert their authority. Utilising heraldry, medals, public statuary, weaponry, antique share certificates and model boats, among other things, he creates rich and multilayered works in which turbulent histories coincide with contemporary issues such as environmental breakdown, the legacies of transatlantic slavery, Europe’s refugee crisis and conflicts around the world.

This mysterious group of black-robed individuals appear to be carrying a monarch or religious potentate on a litter; they are led by a figure holding a ceremonial staff, on which a skeleton clutches a banner that reads “Sic transit gloria mundi” (“Thus passes the glory of the world”). The Procession: Group K represents just a fragment of the ambitious and highly immersive installation that Locke created for Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries in 2022, which brought together many of the themes the artist has explored throughout his career. A carnivalesque collection of almost 150 masked figures, encompassing people of all ages from different places and time periods filled the grand space. Some held banners, rode on horses or sat in wheelchairs, while others carried drums and balanced on stilts. Their colourful and elaborate costumes gave many the appearance of fantastical creatures or mythological characters. Stretching from one end of the neoclassical gallery to the other, they evoked notions of pilgrimage, migration, trade, protest, religious ritual and our own individual journey through life. Together, they invited visitors to reflect on the cycles of history and the ebb and flow of cultures, people, money and power.