East London’s Scenic Public Art Trail

An excellent way to spend a London afternoon is to explore the brilliant east end public art trail, The Line, on foot, bike or scooter. Celebrating the tenth anniversary year, the art trail stretches approximately eight kilometers, linking Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park with The O2 center. Following the path of local waterways and the Greenwich Meridian, the route offers a free outdoor contemporary art exhibition with many surprises. For the tenth anniversary, The Line has commissioned new works by Rasheed Araeen at Bromley by Bow and a new work by Zineb Sedira at Three Mills, as well as a new book by Phaidon to be published in November 2025.

The Line relies on public funding but private funding is essential as well to support its ongoing work. An upcoming contemporary art auction at Sotheby’s on 17 October features original works donated by artists Antony Gormley (reserve: £15,000), Rana Begum (reserve: £8,000) and Saad Qureshi (£8,000). All proceeds will go to The Line.

Since 2015, almost 40 artists have had their work presented along the trail – some works are permanent (including pieces by Richard Wilson and Mahatab Hussain) while some are on loan. The Line currently has 20 works, including art installations by Larry Achiampong, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Simon Faithfull, Abigail Fallis, Laura Ford, Madge Gill, Antony Gormley, Ron Haselden, Gary Hume, Virginia Overton, Eva Rothschild and Thomson and Craighead.

The entire art trail can be viewed in a few hours or if you prefer a shorter excursion, it can be divided into four manageable sections to choose from. Each work is numbered and appears on a downloadable map. And, making the experience even more enjoyable, there are plenty of opportunities for lunch or coffee along the trail. Here are a few highlights of The Line below.

1.Art works on Thames path starting near North Greenwich tube

Richard Wilson’s “ A Slice of Reality” (map reference 22) is a vertical section of an ocean-going sand dredger, described by the artist as a “sound bite”, communicating Greenwich’s rich maritime history, while referencing the manner in which the line of the Meridian slices through the Greenwich Peninsula. Gary Hume (map reference 20) has created “Liberty Grip” a bronze sculpture that’s a cross between abstract and figurative, overlooking the river Thames. A sign by Thomson & Craighead (map reference 23) marks the 24,859 mile distance around the earth and back. The current placement of this sculpture is particularly relevant in its current location on the Greenwich Meridian, which is located at 0 degrees longitude.

A brilliant totemic sound piece by Serge Attukwei Clottey (map reference 21) Tribe and Tribulation stands at over five metres tall. The cubes are made of reclaimed wood, including painted timber from Ghanaian fishing boats, integrating the artist’s interest in our relationship to the ocean, migration and the afterlife of objects. The sculpture includes an embedded sound installation, with recordings from Cape Coast Castle, Elmina Castle, James Fort and a location on the Meridian Line in Tema. The first three sites were former slave forts in the then Gold Coast. Antony Gormley’s (map reference 19)“Quantum Cloud” actually predates The Line as it was commissioned as part of the millennium celebrations but it’s now a favorite stop on the art trail. The giant galvanised steel structure is made of 325 extended tetrahedral sections. Look carefully to see the human figure in the center. A suggested coffee stop on this part of the trail is Coffee Couch, 10 Pier Walk, Greenwich Peninsula.

2.Art works near Royal Victoria Docks

Start with coffee at the Good Hotel, a former Dutch floating prison, now a hip hotel that trains and employs longterm unemployed locals, stimulates local business by using local suppliers and funds an educational charity in Central America. Right outside the hotel are two large colorful chairs by Yinka Ilori (map reference 17 ) and “Bird Boy,” a sculpture in the water by Laura Ford (map reference 16). Continuing on, you’ll see “In Between,” a series of striking black-and-white photo portraits by Togo-born, Brussels-based artist Hélène Amouzou (map reference 15) that draw on her own experience and explore themes of exile, identity, migration and visibility.

3.Artworks near Star lane tube station

Starting along the river Lea and continuing up The Line to the historic House Mill you’ll see the incredible paintings by the prolific British outsider artist Madge Gill (1882-1961) who lived and worked in the area (map reference 13). Helen Cammock’s “On Wind Tides” (map reference 11) is a large-scale text installation that explores movement, migration and change. It consists of two short lines of text on either side of a 60-metre cable bridge just north of Cody Dock. One side of the bridge reads “we fold ourselves across the tides,” while the other side reads “from silt to land sometimes we live as wind blown sand.”

Abigail Fallis (map reference 10) has created an intriguing sculpture made of 22 shopping trolleys in the shape of a double helix. The work was commissioned by a supermarket chain in 2003 on the 50th anniversary of American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick’s discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, which was based on Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images of DNA. “Living Spring” by Eva Rothschild (map reference 8) four metres in height, is a slender sculpture composed of striped metal tubes that’s at the end of a line of mature trees, so the divergent branch-like form appears like a sapling. Rasheed Araeen’s brightly painted steel sculpture (map reference 7) is a new commission this year. “Untitled The Line” was created by the artist specifically for this site. It sits between the natural and urban environment, on a piece of grassy land between the Lee Navigation and Bow Creek, with houseboats and a railway bridge nearby. Its location reflects themes that have played an important role in Araeen’s practice, including water, engineering (he trained as a civil engineer in the 1950s) and freedom of movement.

A real insider restaurant is near this part of The Line. Polentina near Bow Locks and Rasheed Araeen’s sculpture is superb. The Italian menu scrawled on a blackboard changes regularly. The restaurant is not the easiest to find which adds to the thrill of dining there. It’s tucked away on the second floor of a warehouse in an industrial estate and the tables look on to a clothing factory and in fact it previously served as the canteen for the clothing business.

4.Artworks near Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, Stratford

Ron Haselden’s “Diver” (map reference 4) is a light installation that depicts a figure diving into water, complete with a splash. The work uses an animation effect created by lighting each stage of movement in sequence. Anish Kapoor’s “ArcelorMittal Orbit” (map reference 2) is the UK’s tallest sculpture at 115 meters tall and was commissioned for the 2012 Olympic Games. Kapoor took inspiration for the structure from the Tower of Babel and its continually coiling structure does not allow a singular view from any one perspective but rather invites the viewer to move around and inside it. Mahtab Hussain’s “Please Take a Seat” (map reference 1) is a contemporary reinterpretation of a Victorian park bench. An engraved prompt “Hello, let’s make a portrait together” invites you to sit, reflect and use the bench as a prop to create your own portrait and share using #PortraitsOnTheLine. For food and drink, View Tube cafe is a good choice. Located on the Greenway at the edge of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Any time spent on The Line trail will show you thought-provoking sculptures in unexpected places, during a free, self-paced cultural experience that blends art, history, and nature.