Anish Kapoor among artists featuring in youth vote billboard campaign

Leading artists including Anish Kapoor, Katharine Hamnett and the Gruffalo illustrator Axel Scheffler have created artwork to be installed on billboards across the UK as part of a drive to encourage young people to vote in the general election.

The campaign, titled Art to the Polls, features pieces that vary in style and tone but are united in their message to young people: vote. A pair of colourful pieces by Jon Burgerman calls voting an “act of self-caring” and tells young people not to “become [their] parents”, who are represented as sad faces.

Gavin Turk used AI to generate an optical illusion with a message to vote hidden in an image of the House of Commons, while Joy Yamusangie created a comic strip that shows a person feeling “hopeless” crack open a fortune cookie with the message: don’t underestimate your power.

Kapoor, who produced a striking black and red poster bearing the message “Disagree. Disobey. Disrupt. Vote”, said it was vital that young people voted.

He said: “At a time where young people face immense challenges like the climate crisis and rising living costs, it’s more important than ever that they don’t disengage from democracy.

“Voting is a way to make our voices heard and demand the changes we need. It’s only when we understand the fragility and the power of democracy that we feel a responsibility to take action to sustain it. That’s why many of us are contributing to this project: to inspire that feeling in young people.”

Scheffler, who is from Germany, said he would be a first-time voter in Thursday’s election after he recently became a British citizen. He said: “When I was asked to do a picture for the Art to the Polls campaign, and thought about the best way to convince young first-time voters to make use of their democratic right to vote, it took only a moment to come up with the Mouse and Gruffalo.

“Many first-time voters will have grown up with the characters Julia Donaldson and I created 25 years ago. I think it’s so important to go and vote and these two are my messengers – though we can’t be absolutely sure they have photo ID!”

There are fears that young people might not turn out on election day, in part over a failure to be won over by either Labour, courting middle England voters, or the Conservatives, who are attempting to shore up their generally older core vote. Young voters have also been a low turnout group in previous elections. In 2019, 47% of 18-25 year-olds voted compared with 74% of those aged 65 and above.

“If you’re a young person who’s facing really high rents, tuition fees and a job market with low real-terms wage growth, it’s hard to feel that there’s a party representing you ,” Guy Miscampbell, the head of political and social research at Focaldata, told the Observer .

Labour’s stance on Gaza and the climate crisis has also put off many young voters who would usually support the party, prompting fears it could lose a number of relatively safe seats, including Bristol North and Sheffield Hallam.

Patrick English, the director of political analytics at YouGov, said in April : “If there is a big anti-Labour feeling among Muslim and young voters, that could cost them in a big way in places where those groups make up 10-15% of the population each.”

Young voters who do cast ballots on Thursday are expected to strongly reject the Conservative party. An Opinium poll for the Observer published earlier this month shows that Labour has a 52-point lead among the under-35s.

Reform UK also appears to be picking up support among 18- to 24-year-olds. On Thursday, Redfield and Wilton released a poll showing that Reform and the Green party were the joint second most popular parties among the age group, with both polling at 12%.