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 four large photograms, the works are made with a cameraless technique in a darkroom through the manipulation of light and materials on paper.

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.

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.”