Launch event for Harold Offeh’s new public billboard commission.

Join us at Paddington Square to celebrate the launch of artist Harold Offeh’s new public billboard commission, Trustful Strangers Induce Fearless Walks, with a special live performance created and performed by young people from The Showroom’s Imagining Futures programme.

Commissioned by Great Western Developments and curated by LACUNA Trustful Strangers Induce Fearless Walks has been developed through a series of workshops and conversations between Harold Offeh and the Imagining Futures group.

Exploring ideas of public space, community and trust, the group used collage, role-play, writing and discussion, to reflect on what it means to share a city with strangers and how communities of care can be built in everyday public spaces. From this process emerged the phrase ‘Trustful Strangers Induce Fearless Walks’ - a hopeful and powerful statement imagining a city shaped by empathy, mutual respect and collective care.

Extending the themes beyond the billboard’s physical boarders, this unique public performance activates the work for audiences through poetry, spoken word and song; celebrating the voices, creativity and visions of the young people who helped bring this artwork into being.

Free event. All welcome.

The billboard includes access to audio works created by participants via QR code onsite, allowing audiences to continue engaging with the project beyond the live event.

With thanks to the young collaborators: Tia Abbas, Ryan Andrade Teixeira, Chinenye Anyaegbu, Aayushi Chauhan, Daina Earlington, Olajumoke Feyisetan, Nicole Gbadebo, Kiana Kaymarie-Viola, Maria Malugin, Anuhya Saxena, Zara William-Gauntlett, Taj Wilmot and Ruby.

About Harold Offeh
Harold Offeh (b. 1977, Ghana) lives and works in Cambridge and London. Working across performance, video, photography, learning and social arts practice, Offeh is interested in the space created by the inhabiting or embodying of histories. He employs humour as a means to confront the viewer with historical narratives and contemporary culture, grappling with issues such as colonialism, the dynamics of work, labour and gender, and ideals of masculine power.

Offeh has exhibited widely, including at Tate Britain and Tate Modern, South London Gallery, Turf Projects, Kettle’s Yard, Wysing Art Centre, Studio Museum Harlem, MAC VAL, France, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark, Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco, and Art Tower Mito. His major survey, Mmm Gotta Try a Little Harder, It Could Be Sweet, was recently exhibited at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge. Offeh is currently the Head of Programme in MA Contemporary Art Practice and a visiting lecturer in MA Print at the Royal College of Art, London.

Offeh’s billboard is the third iteration of the Paddington Square x The Showroom billboard commission. This annual cycle has been commissioned by Great Western Developments and curated by LACUNA as part of the wider Paddington Square Public Art Programme.

Previous iterations: Hand over Hand by Long Distance Press 2025-26; Why do we care about art? by Kathrin Bohm 2024-25

The commission is part of a wider public art programme at Paddington Square which opened in 2024 with permanent works by Ugo Rondinone, Pae White and Cath alone the rotating outdoor art site for The Showroom. This ambitious art initiative curated by LACUNA, represents a major investment into the public realm by Great Western Developments, who commissioned the public art programme.