Get Up on the Soapbox

Talk about the world’s biggest soapbox. Soon Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth will be transformed into a gigantic platform which will give anyone and everyone a chance to do whatever they want for an hour at a time.

The concept, developed by Anthony Gormley, is called “One and Other” is the latest winner of the “Fourth Plinth” project. Expected to go live next spring, Gormley’s piece will be a “haven for a certain degree of anarchy”. Originally scheduled to run for 365 days, the Gormley project – which will incorporate a safety net around the plinth to prevent people falling off and will necessitate six curators to guard it day and night – has since been scaled back to 100 days. The hydraulic stairs he first proposed to transport people on to the plinth have also been replaced; now a crane will lift people up for maximum theatrical impact.

"I'm favouring a crane because it will be a moment of theatre, someone lifted from common ground and made into an image when they are on top of the plinth ... It will be a spectacle, but I'm also concerned about the subjects, what they learn about themselves, exposed in a public arena," he said.

People who wish to take part in the project will be able to apply online.

Gormley did have one new, and slightly unusual, suggestion: a statue of the Mayor himself. "The idea of Boris Johnson not saying anything but simply standing there, with his hair blowing in the wind, looking at the city which he has come to be Mayor of might be a very nice thing," he said.