Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner is a sound work created for Waterloo Underground station and Bailey’s first UK public artwork. Conceived as an autobiographical mapping of London, the composition reflects on the disappearing cultural and social spaces that have shaped the artist’s life and identity. Bailey’s libretto names more than 70 former community spaces, record shops, LGBTQI+ bars, clubs and landmarks, tracing distinct periods and geographies across the city.

Interpreted and performed by experimental vocalist Elaine Mitchener, the libretto becomes a multilayered vocal composition in which the names of these lost spaces are sounded, repeated and transformed. Fragments of Hubert Gregg’s wartime song “Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner” recur throughout the work and across 16 accompanying billboards. Installed along the travelator connecting the Northern and Jubilee lines, the work transforms personal memories into a public reflection on place, community and collective belonging.


Photo credits:  Thierry Bal