A giant ice cream van and an enormous sweet potato are among the artworks being considered for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Seven artists have been shortlisted with two set to be chosen to put their work on show in central London in 2026 and 2028.
Chila Burman’s The Smile You Send Returns To You is inspired by her father’s journey from India to the UK and recreates the ice cream van he drove around Liverpool called the Rocket, complete with a tiger on the top.
The Hackney-based artist previously made a one-and-a-half metre tall glittery ice cream cone with a giant flake and drove her own ice cream van which she transformed into a travelling art gallery.
If selected it would not be the first sculpture inspired by dessert – in 2020 Heather Phillipson sculpted a giant swirl of whipped cream complete with a cherry on top to sit on the plinth.
Keeping the food theme going is Sweet Potatoes and Yams are Not the Same by Veronica Ryan – a 5.7 metre-tall sweet potato with trees growing out of it.
The vegetable, which was first cultivated in south America, is said to represent “the global conversations” that take place in the square
Also shortlisted are Hornero by Gabriel Chaile which mimics the shape of the nest built by the Rufous Hornero bird which is one of the national emblems of Argentina and a model of a black cat called Believe in Discontent by Ruth Ewan which takes its name from the rallying cry of the radical and suffragist Charlotte Despard who regularly addressed campaigning crowds in the square.
Three human figures round off the longlist – Thomas J Price’s Ancient Feelings which is a monumental golden bronze sculpture of a fictional woman with features amalgamated from different sources to create “a collective community portrait”, Lady in Blue by Tschabalala Self which shows a young woman of colour living in the city and Untitled by Andra UrsuÅ£a which shows a ghostly life-sized person on a horse with both covered by a slime green resin shroud.
The first Fourth Plinth Commission, Mark Wallinger’s Ecce Homo, was put up in 1999 and Deputy Mayor for Culture Justine Simons said the shortlisted works were worthy successors.
She said: “The Fourth Plinth is renowned across the globe for bringing world-class contemporary art to the heart of London. I’m delighted that our shortlisted artists have provided such thought provoking pieces.
“For 25 years the sculptures on the Fourth Plinth have sparked interest and debate – bringing out the art critic in everybody. I’ve no doubt that these proposals will continue that fantastic tradition.”
Models of all seven works will go on show at the National Gallery until March 17 – as well as being able to be viewed online – and the public are invited to have their say about the proposed artworks which will inform the decision of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group when selecting the winning sculptures.
The two winning works will be announced in March and installed on the Fourth Plinth in 2026 and 2028 respectively.
The next commission to grace the site, Teresa Margolles’ Imprints, will be displayed from this September.
It is made up of plaster casts of the faces of hundreds of trans people which will be arranged around the plinth and will begin to naturally erode in the face of London’s weather with the details of the faces slowly fading.
