Footnotes
Notes to Editors:
#LetsDoLondon is the biggest domestic tourism campaign the capital has ever seen. It was created in partnership with the city’s hospitality, culture, and retail industries. The flagship campaign aims to encourage Londoners and visitors back into central London and includes a programme of one-off special events created in partnership with London’s best-known cultural institutions and tourism attractions.
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 15 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 and Richard Wilson’s A Slice of Reality. In 2020, The Line celebrated its fifth anniversary with the extension of its route into Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the launch of a new website and digital guide with Bloomberg Connects and new site-specific projects, including commissions by Thomas J Price and Larry Achiampong. In 2021, the programme of new projects includes the addition of works by Tracey Emin and the renowned outsider artist, Madge Gill. www.the-line.org 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.Anne Hardy is represented by Maureen Paley, London.
For Press Enquiries:
The Line and Anne Hardy: Celia Bailey 07930 442 411 bailey_celia@hotmail.com
London City Airport: David Leach, Head of Corporate Affairs 07701 388 093 media@londoncityairport.com