Tube map collectors will be out in force over the next few days hunting down copies of the updated pocket leaflet that’s popping up in tube stations.
The updated cover is by artist Ellen Gallagher, who created an artwork we’re told is inspired by London’s buried rivers, maritime history and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
It is, however, not an original artwork but something that has been created previously and now shrunk to a pocket-sized version for the tube map.
We’re told that Gallagher’s artwork combines references to literature, mythology and London’s geography, centring on the skeletal remains of a whale resting on the seabed. The work draws on Moby-Dick, particularly the story of Pip, the young Black cabin boy who falls overboard, imagining the underwater world he encounters while exploring themes of marine life, memory and the transatlantic slave trade.
Showing how flexible the art of writing about art can be, the artwork has also been given a London veneer of justification with a claim that it also took inspiration from the long-buried River Fleet and the historic wells at Clerkenwell and Sadler’s Wells that trace its former course
Which wasn’t in the original artwork at all, but seems to have been added on to justify its use on the tube map.
Justine Simons, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said the Tube map was “one of London’s most recognisable icons” and that Gallagher’s artwork offered “a fresh way to explore the city’s history”, encouraging people to discover the capital’s maritime past.
The new pocket Tube map is now available across the London Underground network.