Steve McQueen’s Grenfell, a film installation, is set to be shown at Glasgow’s Tramway this March as part of a national tour which will visit six major cities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The presentation at Tramway will be available for free from Saturday 8–Sunday 23 March. 

Filming for the 24-minute long piece was shot In December 2017 by McQueen, who sought to make an artwork in response to the fire that took place earlier that year on Wednesday 14 June at Grenfell Tower, North Kensington, West London, in which 72 people died. McQueen filmed the tower before it was covered with hoarding. 

First presented in 2023 at Serpentine in London’s Kensington Gardens, initial showings prioritised bereaved families and survivors of the fire. After its presentation, the work was placed in the care of the Tate and the London Museum’s collections. 

A government inquiry on the Grenfell tragedy ran from September 2017 until September 2024. Recommendations from the investigation are yet to be implemented and no trials for potential charges of corporate manslaughter are expected until 2027 at the earliest.  ‘I knew once the tower was covered up, it would start to leave people’s minds,’ McQueen said. 'I was determined that it never be forgotten.'

After Tramway, Grenfell will travel to Chapter in Cardiff, The MAC in Belfast, The Box in Plymouth, the Tate in Liverpool, and MAC in Birmingham. Admission will be free at all venues. 

McQueen has long been a documentarian and maker of feature films with a historical basis. His non-fiction visual works include Occupied City, about the occupation of Amsterdam by Nazis during the second world war; Uprising, a collaborative effort with James Rogan exploring race relations in Britain; 12 Years A Slave, based on the memoir and slave narrative of Solomon Northop; and Hunger, a historical drama discussing the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike. His latest film, Blitz, surveyed the lives of those living in London during bombings in the second world war. 

His work in the art world (for which he has won a Turner prize) has similarly cast its eye over real-life tragedy; he produced Queen And Country, commemorating British soldiers killed in Iraq by presenting their portraits as a sheet of stamps, as part of a 2003 commission from the Imperial War Museum. 

News of the tour arrives on the same day that plans for Grenfell Tower to be demolished were put underway. Deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner is understood to have met families on Wednesday evening to tell them that the tower was to be ‘carefully deconstructed’, according to a spokesperson for Grenfell Next Of Kin.

As reported in The Guardian, representatives for Grenfell Next Of Kin said, ‘We’ve said this to every secretary of state for housing since the very beginning: consult the bereaved and survivors meaningfully before reaching a decision on the tower. Angela Rayner could not give a reason for her decision to demolish the tower.’ 

A government spokesperson responded: ‘The priority for the deputy prime minister is to meet with and write to the bereaved, survivors and the immediate community to let them know her decision on the future of the Grenfell Tower. This is a deeply personal matter for all those affected, and the deputy prime minister is committed to keeping their voice at the heart of this.’ 

Grenfell, Tramway, Glasgow, Saturday 8–Sunday 23 March.