On 23 April 2014, six weeks before Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal 2 opens to the public, Slipstream, a major new sculpture, will be unveiled inside the new Terminal building. Created by internationally renowned British artist Richard Wilson RA and curated by Mark Davy founder of public arts agency Futurecity, Slipstream is an ambitious artwork inspired by the world of aviation and combines precision engineering and specialised UK craftsmanship. The result is a flowing, twisting aluminium form; an imagined flight path of a Zivko Edge 540 stunt plane. Slipstream will be one of the longest permanent sculptures in Europe, measuring over 70 metres long and weighing 77 tonnes.
Slipstream will carve through the length of Terminal 2’s Covered Court and, like so many of Richard Wilson’s large-scale creations, responds to and is integrated within the building’s architecture; supported by four structural columns and suspended between two passenger walkways. The sculpture will be a striking focal point for the airport’s new building, situated by both departures and arrivals to greet passengers. It will be seen by 20 million visitors travelling through the terminal per year.
In 2010 Heathrow appointed the cultural agency Futurecity to develop an international art competition that could attract five renowned artists to provide ambitious proposals for an artwork that would explore the volume and architecture of the new Terminal 2. As a result, British artist Richard Wilson RA was selected to realise his exciting proposal for Slipstream.
Richard Wilson, one of Britain’s leading sculptors, is celebrated for his artistic interventions in architectural space and has exhibited extensively, both nationally and internationally. His best known works are the installation ‘20:50’, a sea of reflective sump oil, which is permanently installed in the Saatchi Collection; and his commissioned contribution to Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture 2008, ‘Turning the Place Over’, a vast ovoid section of a disused building façade which rotated to reveal the inside of its structure. He has represented Britain in the Sydney, Sao Paulo, Venice Biennials and Yokohama Triennial and has been nominated for the Turner Prize on two occasions.
Slipstream’s design uses cutting-edge computer programming technology, usually employed by the aerospace industry, to accurately translate the volume of an aircraft’s movement through space. To make Slipstream a reality, Wilson enlisted structural engineers Price & Myers and specialist Hull-based fabricators Commercial Systems International (CSI). The sculpture was manufactured in Hull in 23 giant sections and transported, piece by piece, from Hull to Heathrow in June 2013.
Richard Wilson says “Slipstream is rooted in its location. This work is a metaphor for travel, it is a time-based work. It is art that moves in time and space coming from the past to the current, delivering different experiences at either end. Sensations of velocity, acceleration and deceleration follow us at every undulation of the form.”
John Holland-Kaye, Heathrow’s Development Director, explained that “Heathrow is one of the few places where art, architecture and engineering come together in one space and we hope our passengers will enjoy Slipstream when they travel through Heathrow”
Notes to Editors
About Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal 2
As part of a £11bn airport development programme, Heathrow are replacing their original Terminal 2 (which stood for more than half a century before closing in 2009). The brand new building will reward flyers with an impressive new space, designed around the individual needs of the 21st century passenger. When it opens 4th June 2014 the new Terminal 2 will serve roughly 20m passengers a year. It will be home to 23 STAR Alliance airlines, Aer Lingus and Germanwings, as well as Virgin Atlantic’s domestic routes.
Luis Vidal + Architects are the concept and lead architects for Heathrow’s new Terminal 2 and are collaborating with Pascall + Watson during the fit out phase. Foster + Partners were the Heathrow Airport master planners and the East terminal building concept architects during the initial project phase. The two main terminal buildings were constructed by HETCo (a joint venture between Ferrovial Agroman and Laing O’Rourke) and Balfour Beatty. The adjoining multi-storey car park was constructed by Laing O’Rourke. The building cost £2.5 billion, which includes the main Terminal 2 building, a new 522-metre satellite pier (T2B), Richard Wilson’s Slipstream sculpture, a new 1,340 capacity car park and an energy centre and cooling station.
Heathrow have designed the new Terminal 2 with an aim to be as environmentally responsible as possible, with sustainability at the core of the programme. 95% per cent of the buildings demolished to make way for the new terminal have been recycled. In addition, the new Terminal 2 will be 40% more carbon-efficient than the old building and extremely energy efficient; with biomass (wood chip) boilers, photovoltaic panels and a main cooling plant carefully chosen for its low global warming potential. Overall, Heathrow’s target is to recycle or compost 70% of airport waste by 2020.
About Richard Wilson
Richard Wilson is one of Britain’s most renowned sculptors. He is internationally celebrated for his interventions in architectural space, which draw inspiration from the worlds of engineering and construction and are characterized by concerns with size and structural daring.
Wilson has exhibited widely, nationally and internationally, for nearly 40 years and has made major museum exhibitions and public works in countries as diverse as Japan, China, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Iraq and numerous countries throughout Europe. Wilson has also represented Britain in the Sydney, Sao Paulo, Venice Biennials and Yokohama Triennial, was nominated for the Turner Prize on two occasions and was awarded the prestigious DAAD residency in Berlin 1992/3. He was one of a select number of artists invited to create a major public work for The Millennium Dome and the only British artist invited to participate in Echigo- Tsumari Art Triennial 2000, Japan.
Wilson’s projects have generated universal critical acclaim. Wilson’s seminal installation ‘20:50’, a sea of reflective sump oil, which is permanently installed in the Saatchi Collection, was described as “one of the masterpieces of the modern age” by the art critic Andrew Graham Dixon in the BBC television series ‘The History of British Art’. Wilson’s commissioned contribution to Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture 2008, titled ‘Turning the Place Over’, comprised a vast ovoid section of a disused building façade that rotated three dimensionally on a spindle. This work won the Ace engineering excellence award 2008. Other works include ‘Square the Block’, 2010 for the LSE Building in London, that both mimics and subverts the existing façade, and ‘18 holes’ for the Folkestone Triennial. Recent work includes the Rooftop Commission at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad Festival titled, ‘Hang on a minute lads, I’ve got a great idea’.
About Futurecity & Founder, Mark Davy
Mark Davy is the curator for Slipstream and the originator of the Heathrow Terminal 2 Covered Court public art project. He leads Futurecity, set up to reflect the burgeoning interest in culture- driven place making, urbanism and regeneration. Davy has encouraged the private sector in the UK to use art and culture as part of a toolkit for providing a cultural narrative for our towns, cities and urban centres. In support of his ideas, Davy has written over 100 place making and cultural strategies for brownfield developments and regeneration projects across the UK and Europe and runs a successful commissioning programme for contemporary art in the public realm.
Futurecity is the largest public arts agency in the UK, responsible for a series of large-scale multi-disciplinary cultural projects that include:
- Curators for the 50 metre ‘White Horse’ by Mark Wallinger for Ebbsfleet Valley, UK
- Curators for the 70 metre Slipstream project by Richard Wilson RA for the new Terminal 2 Covered Court at Heathrow Airport
- The Crossrail public art strategy and curators for the 8 Crossrail central stations, interventions by 8 international artists and partnerships with 8 of the UK’s leading contemporary art galleries
- Curators for the 1.7 million pound arts programme for the Kings Health Partners’ Cancer Centre, London
- Curators for the new London Bridge terminus designed by Grimshaw Architects
- Curators for Southbank Tower designed by KPF architects for client CIT
Futurecity works closely with a wide range of clients to manage the procurement, production and installation of cultural projects from inception to completion. Futurecity believe culture can add narrative and authenticity to our urban centres through cultural branding, public art strategies, and targeted research on place making policy, cultural economics and the creative industries.
Futurecity deliver site-specific and multi-disciplinary projects that are influenced by, or contribute to place making. They develop community engagement projects and targeted public consultation, find project champions, cultural partners and build relationships with local stakeholders, community groups and local authorities. Futurecity have a mentoring programme for young and emerging artists, and work with art schools including the University of the Arts London, Goldsmiths University and the Royal College to develop new talent and skills.
For further press information, interviews or images of Richard Wilson’s Slipstream please contact:
Rebecca Storey, Sutton PR on +44 (0) 20 7183 3577 or email [email protected]
Heathrow Airport Media Centre on +44 (0)20 8745 7224 or email [email protected]