The Fourth Plinth. Current installation: 'Mil Veces un Instante’ by Teresa Margolles
- SITE_SPECIFIC
- Dec 5, 2025
- 3 min read
Trafalgar Square is the beating heart of London’s civic and cultural life, long serving as a gathering place for rallies, celebrations, and the annual unveiling of Norway’s gifted spruce. Once an unused pedestal, the Fourth Plinth has become one of the city’s most compelling
platforms for public art, a locus where public memory and contemporary concerns converge.
Unveiled in September 2024, the current Fourth Plinth commission, Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant) by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, is the fifteenth work to occupy the site since the programme began in 1999. At first glance, the monumental cube appears as a stark, modernist block; on closer inspection, its surface resolves into 726 plaster life masks. These fragile, detailed impressions are taken from trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals - 363 from Mexico and 363 from the UK - whose faces collectively shape the work’s form and meaning.
The UK’s notoriously wet climate will steadily erode these plaster masks over the two years the installation remains on view, until September 2026. By choosing a deliberately unstable material, Margolles challenges conventions of permanence in public sculpture. As the faces weather and fade, viewers confront the fragility of memory and identity, witnessing the gradual disappearance of features that were once present and precise. Positioned high above the square, the work asks passers-by to look up and acknowledge those members of a global, marginalised community.
Community engagement is central to the project. Mil Veces un Instante is dedicated to the artist’s friend Karla La Borrada, murdered in Ciudad Juárez on 22 December 2015. The work also draws on the structure of a Tzompantli, or skull rack, embedding personal loss within broader histories of violence and remembrance. Across both London and Mexico, Margolles collaborated closely with community groups, creating intimate casting sessions in which participants could speak, share experiences, and engage directly with the making process. Her sustained relationship with LGBTQ+ shelters in Ciudad Juárez underscores her position as a long-term ally and advocate, rather than a member of the community herself. The resulting work honours these individuals both as a collective and as distinct presences.
The evolution of the Fourth Plinth, from an empty 1841 pedestal intended for an unrealised equestrian statue of King William IV to a globally recognised site for temporary public art forms a crucial backdrop to Margolles’ work. Since the first temporary commission in 1999, and the establishment of a regular programme from 2005, the plinth has become an open-air exhibition space that mirrors London’s shifting cultural and political interests. Following the 2024 Shortlist Exhibition at the National Gallery, selections have already been made for future commissions. Selected by The Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, with input from a public vote, work by Tschabalala Self in 2026 and Andra Ursuţa in 2028, will be installed, affirming the programme’s ongoing ambition.
Discourse continues over whether the plinth should remain a site for temporary commissions, yet it undeniably anchors Trafalgar Square as a place where art, history, and public life intersect. In this context, Mil Veces un Instante both complements and challenges the city’s cultural heritage. Whether pausing to consider the faces raised above the square or engaging with the bustle below, visitors encounter a moment of reflection - one that speaks to visibility, vulnerability, and the shared, ever-changing present of London.
Text by Eilidh Watson
Address:
Trafalgar Sq
WC2N 5NJ
London
United Kingdom
Commissioned by:
The Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group
