Destination London comes to London City Airport - public art at its best.....

London City Airport has unveiled its first-ever public art commission – Destination London, by the critically acclaimed East London artist, Anne Hardy. This unique work, located in the West Pier arrivals corridor, will greet millions of international visitors as passengers return to the airport and London reopens to the world. The commission, which will be in place for two years, transmits a message of optimism and positivity from nature, providing a unique welcome to the Royal Docks and its diverse and vibrant cultural scene as City Airport once again connects travellers from across the globe to the heart of London.

 

Curated by The Line, East London’s public art walk running between Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and The O2, Destination London aims to communicate a vivid sense of the layered histories of London, expressed through the diverse but often overlooked botanical life found around London City Airport.

Presented as a series of imagined and atmospheric landscapes through a sequence of 4 large photograms, the works are made with a cameraless technique in a darkroom through the manipulation of light and materials on paper.

Visitors will encounter the rich flora found by Anne Hardy at London City Airport, on the airfield and from the original dock side, as well as in the wild spaces of Bow Creek and the exotic species to be found in nearby urban gardens and allotments.

Destination London will encapsulate the long history of London as a place of travel, trade and movement through the plants which have made their way here over thousands of years.

Anne Hardy commented: “The Thames connects us literally to the past, and to the trade and people who have travelled here over its surface. The surrounding landscape of tidal flows and post-industrial development forms a kind of archaeology in flux, which holds within it a parallel botanic universe of international plants. Many of which were brought here by people; for food and connection to home cultures, as well as for trade and botanic research.”

Anne Hardy is internationally recognised for her large-scale sculptural installations: immersive, sensual works that combine physical materials with lighting and surround sound. These works derive from places she calls ‘pockets of wild space’ – gaps in the urban space where materials, atmospheres, and emotions gather. 

Hardy brings this approach to her commission for London City Airport, seeking out the overlooked and diverse botanical material in the surrounding urban space, and drawing on the specific atmosphere of this post-industrial landscape at the edge of Thames to create a series of large scale photograms.

Anne Hardy was recently commissioned by Tate Britain, London to create ‘The Depth of Darkness, the Return of the Light’ for their annual Winter Commission and is currently included in the landmark touring exhibition British Art Show 9. In 2022 she will exhibit at the Merz Foundation in Turin, as part of the shortlist for Mario Merz Prize, and will be artist in residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. In 2019, Hardy was invited to curate the Arts Council Collection, creating a site specific sensory installation, ‘The Weather Garden’ at Towner Art Gallery, UK (2019). Recent solo exhibitions and commissions include ‘Sensory Spaces #13’, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Netherlands (2018), Museum Marta Herford Museum, Germany (2018), ‘Falling and Walking’ at Leeds Art Gallery (2018) and ArtNight, London (2017). Hardy’s works are held in major public collections including; Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, British Council, Arts Council Collection, and Leeds Art Gallery.

The Line celebrated its Fifth Anniversary in 2020 with an expanded programme featuring new artworks, commissions and events, of which Destination London was the first to be announced. A panel comprising local stakeholders and The Line’s Co-Founder and Director, Megan Piper, selected Anne Hardy from a shortlist of East London-based artists.  The Line was established by art entrepreneur Megan Piper and the late regeneration expert Clive Dutton OBE. It launched in 2015, unveiling monumental sculptures along the footpaths of East London’s waterways. These works had previously been hidden away from public view, in storage or in private collections. Since then, through the generous support of sponsors and patrons, The Line has introduced many major works of art by leading artists, to hundreds of thousands of local residents and tourists for free.

The Line was initiated through a crowd-funding campaign that raised over £140,000 in 2014 and, in the subsequent five years, it has run without public funding. The Line has secured a mixed income portfolio of corporates, trusts and foundations (including Garfield Weston Foundation and Bloomberg) and private donors. The project’s success has also been underpinned by the phenomenal in-kind support it has received from its founding supporters, including architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.

Megan Piper, Co-Founder and Director of The Line, said: “We are delighted to have curated this commission with Anne Hardy, which has transformed the International Arrivals corridor for inbound travellers and welcomes visitors to London. The international origins of local flora reflect the diversity that is a defining feature of the city, which is important to celebrate now more than ever.”

 

Neil Dillon, Marketing Director of London City Airport, said: “London City Airport is delighted to have installed ‘Destination London’, our first public art commission. Anne Hardy’s work brings a new and exciting cultural dimension to our International Arrivals corridor, with its vibrant colours giving off an air of calm and projecting feelings of wellbeing and positivity from nature, as we emerge from the pandemic.

 

The plant life featured in Destination London was carefully collected by Anne Hardy herself from locations around our airport. It is representative of flora native to many parts of the globe, very fitting for an international airport in the heart of London - a truly global destination.

 

We really hope that, over the next two years, international arriving passengers embrace this unique and memorable welcome to East London from the moment they touch down at the airport.”

 

Justine Simons OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries, said: “I am delighted that London City Airport has unveiled a new public art commission to welcome visitors to the capital.  One of the reasons visitors love coming here is because we are brimming with creativity, and these bold landscapes celebrate the beauty within our city.”

 

Destination London is supported by the Mayor of London and the Royal Docks Team and supports the Mayor’s #LetsDoLondon campaign.