London City Airport has announced a major new public art commission with renowned artist Anne Hardy and public art organization The Line.
London artist Hardy’s work, Destination London, will be unveiled to the public in summer 2020 and will sit in the International Arrivals corridor at the airport. It is part of a longer arts program overseen by The Line, East London’s public art walk, which runs between the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and The O2 Arena .
Destination London is a sequence of six large photograms, made with a camera-less technique. It features images created from the flora found at London City Airport, on the airfield and from the original dock side, as well as in the wild spaces of Bow Creek. It will also use exotic species found in nearby urban gardens and allotments, encapsulating the long history of London as a place of travel, trade and movement through the plants that have made their way to the city over thousands of years.
“The Thames connects us literally to past trade, and the people who have traveled 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 these were brought here by people; for food and connection to home cultures, as well as for trade and botanic research,” explained Hardy.
Chosen from a shortlist of East London-based artists, Anne Hardy is internationally recognized for her large-scale sculptural installations which are inspired by places she calls “pockets of wild space” – gaps in the urban space where materials, atmospheres and emotions gather.