LONDON.- 14-18 NOW, the organisation set up to bring a creative response to the centenary of the First World War, has completed its final season after five years of arts events. Through a pioneering approach to commemoration, 14-18 NOW has brought new audiences to contemporary arts and heritage. 14-18 NOW has created a new way of marking major national moments through the arts, commissioning artists to create works that respond to different aspects of the war.

· 35 million people around the UK (over half of the population) have engaged with the 14-18 NOW programme, including 8 million young people

· 125 projects have been commissioned by 14-18 NOW to bring history to life, including works by Rachel Whiteread, John Akomfrah, Gillian Wearing, Peter Jackson, Danny Boyle, Vivienne Westwood, Jeremy Deller, Shobana Jeyasingh, Sir Peter Blake, Anna Meredith, William Kentridge, Akram Khan, Susan Philipsz and Yinka Shonibare MBE.

· More than 420 artists from 40 countries created artworks in 220 locations across the UK, delivered with 600 partners including arts, heritage and community organisations.

· The 14-18 NOW programme has reached across the UK from the Outer Hebrides to Cornwall and Derry/Londonderry to Ipswich, and globally to New York, Berlin, Paris, Cape Town, Adelaide, Trinidad, Athens, Shanghai and Auckland.

· 67% of the 14-18 NOW programme was free to the public.

· Enduring works of art include the Millicent Fawcett statue in Parliament Square by Gillian Wearing, Rachel Whiteread’s Nissen Hut in Dalby Forest and Peter Jackson’s film They Shall Not Grow Old, as well as multiple books, plays, operas, music compositions, dance works and other public artworks.

· Participatory projects that have made the biggest impression on the public include Jeremy Deller’s We're here because we’re here, PROCESSIONS, LIGHTS OUT, Letter to an Unknown Soldier, the Poppies tour by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper and Danny Boyle’s Pages of the Sea.

· Over 3.9 million people watched Peter Jackson’s film They Shall Not Grow Old on BBC2 and iPlayer[2], with 93 percent of those who saw the film agreeing that it had an emotional impact[3].

· The 14-18 NOW programme of commissions has created more free, large-scale, UK-wide artworks in shared public spaces than any other comparable programme.

· 14-18 NOW has been particularly successful in bringing the centenary of the war to young people by engaging them through contemporary culture.

Jenny Waldman, Director of 14-18 NOW, said: “Contemporary artists brought history to life, helping us to see the First World War anew and think again. Through 14-18 NOW the UK commemorated the centenary through the work of extraordinary artists, touching millions of people emotionally. We are thrilled that over half of the UK population have engaged with the 14-18 NOW programme - huge thanks go to all our artists, partners, volunteers, supporters and to the millions of people who took part.”