About
By The People: 150 Lifetimes is a permanent artwork on display in Alexandra Palace’s East Court for all to see. It is an ambitious project to preserve thousands of people’s memories and connection to London’s iconic Alexandra Palace, and was unveiled in May, 2024.
The project was funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and made possible by money raised by National Lottery players.
Artwork
The giant photo mosaic measures 35 square metres and is constructed using photographs sent in by the public, showcasing a diverse range of personal stories and themes of identity, place, memory, family, heritage and culture. It is inspired by an original engraving of the palace created just over 150 years ago by J. T. Wood, a prolific London printmaker.
Gallery
Photographs were sent in by the public, showcasing a diverse range of personal stories and themes of identity, place, memory, family, heritage and culture. Interwoven are pictures from the Alexandra Palace archive celebrating the individuals involved in the key moments of history, innovation and local London life that have been part of Ally Pally’s unique century and a half of existence.
Lifetimes
Opened
Yearly Visitors
Photo Mosaic
By the People, 150 Lifetimes
Projects related to the programme were also carried in local schools, libraries and care homes, to ensure the local community had every opportunity to participate. Alexandra Palace was opened in 1873, having been designed as the ‘Palace of the People’, with the intended purpose to provide entertainment and recreation for the masses. Today the Park and Palace are run by a charity – the Alexandra Park and Palace Charitable Trust – which continues this mission.
Explore
In addition to the permanent display at the Palace, By the People, 150 Lifetimes is also available to explore as a huge gigapixel image online in deep zoom. Zoom in and explore the collected stories of all those who took part from the comfort of your phone or armchair.
Gigapixels are huge photographic images. They can be viewed on-screen in an interactive format, or as very large format prints with an incredible amount of detail. A gigapixel image contains one billion pixels, which is 1,000 times the size of a one-megapixel image, or equivalent to 1,000 megapixels.
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Discover more about
150 years of Alexandra Park and Palace
Alexandra Palace was opened in 1873, having been designed as the ‘Palace of the People’, with the intended purpose to provide entertainment and recreation for the masses. Today the Park and Palace are run by a charity – the Alexandra Park and Palace Charitable Trust – which continues this mission by hosting a programme of live music, sport, theatre, comedy, exhibitions and creative learning opportunities for the local community, as well as continuing to care for and restore the listed Palace and 196 acres of award-winning parkland.
By the People is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and made possible by money raised by National Lottery players.
Alexandra Park and Palace Charitable Trust is a registered charity no. 281991