LONDON, UK, 2020-Mar-17 — /Travel PR News/ — London City Airport has announced that the critically acclaimed East London artist, Anne Hardy, has been selected for their inaugural art commission.
Destination London is a new site-specific work that will be unveiled to the public in June. This exciting new commission will welcome millions of visitors arriving through the International Arrivals corridor each year.
Curated by The Line, East London’s public art walk running between the 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 6 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 past trade, and the 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.”
The Line will celebrate its Fifth Anniversary this year with an expanded programme featuring new artworks, commissions and events, of which Destination London is 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.
Megan Piper, Co-Founder and Director of The Line, Said:
“We are delighted to be working with Anne Hardy on this ambitious new commission, which will transform the International Arrivals corridor for inbound travellers, welcoming 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.”
Robert Sinclair, CEO of London City Airport, said:
“With London’s doors firmly open for international visitors, we want to welcome passengers to our airport, and our city, with an amazing first impression that they won’t forget. Working in partnership with The Line, we think we have an opportunity to create a welcome unlike any other airport, using our walls as a blank canvas to surprise and delight.”
Notes to Editors:
The Line
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.
The Line currently includes works by 8 artists. The majority of these are loans from artists, galleries and private collections but The Line also highlights a number of pre-existing works along the route, including Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud. The inaugural loans, which include Damien Hirst, Abigail Fallis and Thomas J Price, came through an open submission and were selected by a panel that included Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger.
Anne Hardy
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. 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 (phhhhhhhhhhh phossshhhhh crrhhhzzz mn huaooogh) 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. In late 2020 she will be artist in residence at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas.
Anne Hardy is represented by Maureen Paley, London.
For Press Enquiries:
The Line and Anne Hardy:
Celia Bailey
07930 442 411
celia@the-line.org
bailey_celia@hotmail.com
London City Airport:
Joe Rankin, Head of Communications
07936 342 656
Joe.Rankin@londoncityairport.com
media@londoncityairport.com
Source: London City Airport