Yesterday night in London, CIRCA presented a new commission by Lauren Halsey, curated by Ms. Lauryn Hill and shown for one night only on Piccadilly Lights. Created from thousands of individually cut images, the work featured as a vibrant, multilayered collage of people, signs, places, symbols and cultural memory, transforming one of London’s most visible public screens into a non-linear portrait of Black life. The work connects the everyday and the monumental, the street and the cosmic, the ancestral and the future.

The commission extended Ms. Lauryn Hill’s original DIASPORA CALLING! vision, first launched in Brooklyn a decade earlier, into a new public setting. For Halsey, whose practice is rooted in the visual and social landscape of South Central Los Angeles, the work reflected a lifelong connection to Hill’s music, values and commitment to collective empowerment. Drawing from storefronts, community histories, ancient Egyptian forms, Afrofuturist imagery and the graphic language of funk, Halsey created a world in which everyday lives and cultural histories were elevated to the scale of the billboard.

Presented freely on Piccadilly Lights, the commission became an act of public service, transforming a space usually dedicated to advertising into a platform for shared imagination and cultural exchange. The presentation was accompanied by a rare appearance from Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean, who addressed the crowd at Piccadilly Circus and performed an a cappella version of “Ready Or Not”. Taking place 30 years after the release of The Score, the moment offered a unique opportunity to see the two artists together in London ahead of Hill’s highly anticipated UK performance at DIASPORA CALLING! in Milton Keynes.

Halsey’s practice extends to Summaeverythang, a community centre she founded in 2019 that is ‘dedicated to the empowerment and transcendence of Black and Brown folks socio-politically, economically, intellectually and artistically.’ Her work offers a celebration of South Central’s vitality and a creative form of resistance to its evolving gentrification. Halsey approaches her gallery-based exhibitions and commissions as prototypes for one of her goals: creating a permanent sculpture park.