Heather Phillipson’s latest work “The End” has finally been unveiled on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth.

Heather Phillipson’s latest work “The End” (a 31-foot statue of a dollop of whipped cream with a fly on it) has finally been unveiled on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth. 

The work was supposed to be installed on the empty plinth in March but on the day the installation was scheduled to be revealed, Britain went into lockdown.

Conceived in 2016, the year of the EU referendum and Donald Trump winning the US presidential election, the work gives a sense of something being on the verge of collapse. The cream is melting around the base of the plinth, the fly makes it unappealing.

It plays on Trafalgar Square being a shared place of celebration, protest and surveillance. It has cameras everywhere including one in the drone on the sculpture, which provides a live feed at a dedicated website www.theend.today

Phillipson said she had mixed emotions about unveiling The End. “It is a strange time to be doing anything right now. But it also felt like it was never going to be the right time, so maybe it was the right time to just let it happen.”