The Squash: Anthea Hamilton's new installation revealed at Tate Britain

It will feature a continuous six-month performance of a single character, dressed in a colourful squash-like costume. Collaborating with Jonathan Anderson at Loewe, she has designed seven costumes that incorporate the colours and shapes of varieties of squash or pumpkin.

Over 7,000 white floor tiles have been laid to span the length of the space and encase a series of large structures that serve as podiums for a number of works of art from Tate’s collection, chosen by Hamilton for their organic forms and colours. The tiles create an immersive new environment within the neoclassical galleries.

Influenced by the early 20th-century French writer and dramatist Antonin Artaud and his call for the ‘physical knowledge of images’, her work is a bodily response to an idea or an image that she wishes to examine. Each element of the work has evolved from Hamilton’s interest in a found photograph, for which the original source has since been lost. The viewer must imagine its history and intention and it is here the artist brings together tiles, structures, sculptures and costumes, inviting the performer to explore their own interpretation of the image.

Anthea Hamilton is renowned for her bold, often humorous works which incorporate references from the worlds of art, design, fashion and popular culture. She has exhibited widely with recent large-scale, site-specific installations including her Turner Prize-nominated exhibition Lichen! Libido! Chastity! at the SculptureCenter in New York, re-staged at Tate Britain in 2016, and Anthea Hamilton Reimagines Kettle’s Yard at The Hepworth Wakefield.

The Squash runs until 7 October 2018 at Tate Britain. For more info, visit tate.org.uk.