Gillian Wearing was announced as the recipient of the commission in April 2017, following a campaign by Caroline Criado Perez which saw nearly 85,000 signatures applied to an online petition calling for a statue of a woman to be erected in the square. The sculpture sees the Suffragist leader brandishing a placard, proclaiming ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere.’ The words are Fawcett’s own, lifted by the artist from a letter the campaigner wrote after the infamous death of Suffragette Emily Davison at the 1913 Epsom Derby.
Wearing has collaborated with publisher Plinth, the Mayor of London and designer Bella Freud to produce a range of merchandise inspired by Fawcett’s message, to celebrate the progress made by women since 1918, and to foreground the ongoing fight for women’s rights. Part of the proceeds from sales will be donated to the Fawcett Society, who still campaign for gender equality to this day since their founding more than 150 years ago.