29 June – 10 July 2026
Monday to Friday, 10am – 5pm
at Waterloo Underground station
Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner is a new sound artwork for Waterloo station by London-based composer, artist and DJ Ain Bailey (b. London, 1963) with experimental vocalist and movement artist Elaine Mitchener (b. London, 1970).
Bailey’s first UK public artwork undertakes an autobiographical mapping of London to reflect on the value of London’s cultural spaces and their place in shaping a personal identity. Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner is an original 6:30-minute audio work. It features a new libretto paying homage to more than 70 London premises that have been important to Ain Bailey throughout her lifetime, which are no longer open. The work can be heard at Waterloo Underground station along the travelator connecting the Northern and Jubilee lines.
Bailey’s libretto has been interpreted and performed by Elaine Mitchener as a multi-layered composition for voice. Mitchener brings her singular compositional style of vocal free experimentation to sound the names of venues listed within Bailey’s lyrics – loose groupings of community spaces, record shops, LGBTQI+ bars, and landmarks of London. The libretto is interspersed with lyrics taken from Hubert Gregg’s Blitz-era love song ‘Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner’, which Mitchener has reinterpreted. Emblazoned across 16 billboards, Gregg’s lyrics anchor the artwork in an ideal of London as a feeling, or experience, that is held in common.
Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner is the third audio commission in a series for Waterloo Underground station with the Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme. It is directly inspired by a register of more than 1,500 at-risk cultural spaces in London, which the Mayor has supported since 2016.
Offering an autobiographical response, Bailey’s audio work indexes places that have had a meaningful presence in her life. Their names stream through the composition—legendary night club of Bailey’s teens, Bali Hai, Brixton Neighbourhood Community Association, established by her family in 1971, Soho’s Groove Records, lesbian institution Candy Bar—evoking distinct eras, scenes and postcodes characterising London, particularly during the 1990s and 2000s.
A partnership with Iklectik, a grassroots organisation dedicated to experimental sound and performance practices, where Bailey has previously performed, brings her engagement with London’s culture into the present. After 10-years in Waterloo, Iklectik, supported by the Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme is now in-residence at Peckham Levels. Building upon artistic work exploring connections between memory and sound, Bailey will invite members of Iklectik’s community to bring audio or music to a ‘Sonic Stories’ listening workshop taking place on Saturday 4th of July 2026.
The artist Ain Bailey said: “Maybe It’s Because I’m A Londoner is about disappearing social and cultural spaces from my own life – across several decades. By translating these ghostly traces into a visual and sonic form within Waterloo Station, I hope to invite reflection on how shared environments carry collective meaning, shaping community and identity.”
About Ain Bailey
Ain Bailey is a composer, artist and DJ. She facilitates workshops exploring identity, memory and sound. Bailey’s site-specific artwork for Waterloo follows a major commission responding to urban architectural space for Bruckenmusik 27, Cologne, Germany (2022). It is the artist’s second project with Elaine Mitchener, following the work ‘Linstead Market’ presented in Bailey’s solo exhibitions ‘The Jamaica Project’ at Camden Art Centre, London (2026) and ‘Version’ at Wysing Art Centre, Cambridgeshire (2021). Bailey has presented notable audio and film commissions at Cubitt Gallery, London; FACT Liverpool; CCS Bard, New York, and Serpentine Pavilion, London. She was the 2022-23 Cavendish Arts Science Fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge, and a 2023 recipient of Awards For Artists from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
About Elaine Mitchener
Elaine Mitchener is a British Afro-Caribbean vocalist, movement artist and composer working between contemporary/experimental new music, free improvisation and visual art. She is currently a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist, an Artist Associate with ENSEMBLE KLANG and a NEEDCompany Fellow. Elaine was a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Fellow (2022), an exhibiting artist in the British Art Show 9 (2021-22) and was selected for the Rauschenberg Residency (2020). In February 2022 Mitchener was awarded an MBE for Services to Music. Her debut album SOLO THROAT was released in May 2024 under Café Oto’s OTORUKO label.
About the Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme
The Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme focusses on safeguarding existing spaces across London – protecting both their social and economic value. They provide expertise to help protect against threats to London’s cultural and community-led spaces and have directly supported more than 1,500 organisations. The Mayor of London’s Culture and Community Spaces at Risk programme has partnered with Art on the Underground to support a series of audio installations that can be heard in London Underground stations, spotlighting the grassroots organisations they have supported.
About Iklectik
Founded in 2014, Iklectik is an independent arts organisation dedicated to experimental music, cross-disciplinary performance, and socially engaged practices. Over the past decade, it has become a crucial home for underground and countercultural communities, presenting artists across sound, movement, visual arts, and performance, whose work challenges norms and sparks new imaginaries.
