London Evening Standard/London

A major new sculpture has been unveiled ahead of the opening of Heathrow’s revamped Terminal 2. The £2.5mn artwork, called Slipstream, was previewed yesterday before the building opens to the public on June 4.
Suspended outside the new £2.5bn terminal building, the sculpture is inspired by the “exhilarating potential of flight”.
Its twisting aluminium form is intended to follow the imagined flight path of a Zivko Edge 540 stunt plane. Richard Wilson, the twice Turner Prize-nominated artist behind the work, said it would act as a “gateway” to London as a cultural centre and compared the space to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.
Measuring 78 metres and weighing 77 tonnes, it is Wilson’s longest sculpture and hangs between six and 18 metres off the ground in the covered court space, between the terminal and parking area, on an invisible “canvas”.
Passengers will be able to walk the length of the artwork on connecting walkways on three sides. Made using cutting-edge computer programming technology normally used by the aerospace industry, it had to be constructed in 23 giant sections before being transported to Heathrow piece by piece from last June.
Wilson, 50, said it was “surreal” finally to see the work unveiled after about three years in the making.
He told the Standard: “The first flight lands on June 4 so the public won’t be able to see the piece of work until then but we’re just having a pre-launch.
“It’s to say there’s another type of Turbine Hall in existence, not just at Tate Modern but at Terminal 2 to tell people they’ve arrived at London, the cultural capital of the world.”
He added: “It might not be the heaviest work I’ve done but it’s definitely the longest, it’s 78 metres.”
The sculpture, which Wilson said has been a “collaborative” project, will be seen by 20mn people coming through the terminal every year.