Revisiting: KUI HUA ZI

by Louise Camu

9^th OCTOBER 2010

It’s a grizzly overcast afternoon and the pale October light filters through the thin vertical windows at the end of the hall, lending the installation a solemn and melancholy air. As I approach, the homogenous grey carpet begins to take form; I move closer still. 

The field runs the length of the hall like a large sandpit; a carpet of intricate beads or pebbles. Upon reaching the edge, I kneel to pick up a small rounded object. Isolated in the palm of my hand, I realise it’s a sunflower seed, one of a million and smooth to the touch, only slightly larger than my thumbnail in size. 

Have you ever tasted one? Place it on your tongue and suck on the salty husk before biting down to break it open and free the nutty-tasting kernel at the heart of it. The outer shell is inedible, but elegant and ornamental – like Greek decorations on ancient clay pots. But this one isn’t real. I rub the seed with my thumb and look up, perplexed. 

The hall hums with activity as all ages interact. Across the field, kids are chasing each other, couples lie beside one another, people wander or lounge around and chat, some look around…lost in thought. Ahead of me, a father struggles to convince his young toddler to spit out a porcelain husk. Walking out onto the grey expanse – in awe at the sheer scale of the work and the whole endeavour – I feel as though I am walking across a beach with each step resounding like the satisfying crunch of shingle underfoot. 

I sink down amongst the seeds and pass my hands over them, feeling them trickle through the gaps in my fingers. There’s a refined beauty in the simplicity of the work. No one seed the same; each unique brushstroke a stand against conformity. But here, the million individual pieces work as one. 

Japanese rock gardens spring to mind, built in temples or monasteries as sacred spaces for meditation and contemplation; the raked gravel meant to imitate ripples on the surface of water. I, too, am floating on a vast monochrome sea, suspended in time and shrouded in mystery. I feel compelled to lie here; to ignore the rush and take a moment to contemplate this monument of Chinese craftsmanship. This field imbued with significance. I can’t put my finger on it but it feels complex and urgent, difficult and moving. I’m trying to understand it. 

9th October 2020

I’m looking at a photograph by Ai Weiwei, dated 1983, taken soon after his arrival in New York from Beijing. A wire hanger, bent into the elegant profile of the surrealist Marcel Duchamp, rests on a wooden surface partially filled with the discarded husks of real sunflower seeds. 

In Ai’s work, sunflower seeds are a symbol of Chinese heritage and history. In times of struggle or celebration, the seeds were often shared amongst strangers and friends – they have been named the ‘seeds of freedom’ by activists in China. In ancient Greek myth, sunflowers carry connotations of admiration and loyalty and in Maoist imagery, the seeds are reminiscent of the regime’s loyal subjects, with the former leader often represented as a radiating sun surrounded by sunflowers. To Ai, they are a radical “sign of social activity” and exchange between people.

I first came across Hanging Man (1985), featured above, at the Ai Weiwei exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in 2015. It is one of first of Ai’s works to reference Duchamp and his notion of the ‘readymade’ – an everyday object recast as art object by the artist. Duchamp was a pivotal figure in the development of Ai’s conceptual practice, introducing the artist to the subversive technique of re-appropriating materials and objects in order to alter both their value and significance to radical ends. Over the following decades, Ai would expand the notion of the ‘readymade’ beyond its original definition, using it to extend his critique of the Chinese system. The seed had been planted. More than 25 years later, these elements would come together and resurface in Ai’s large-scale installation at the Tate Modern. 

I watch as skilled hands sift through the porcelain seeds, and water is poured over to wash away remaining debris, dust and dirt. A statement from Ai appears in the centre of the screen:  

I have a Totalitarian regime. It is my readymade.

In the context of the installation, Ai’s ‘readymade’ could be two things. First, the seed, as it transcends its function from everyday grub to cultural symbol and art object. Second, the Chinese totalitarian system transformed from socio-political reality into physical construct – fertile fodder for the artist. Here, the readymade takes on a more abstract quality. The statement is vague, but compellingly so. 

There are clear antagonisms at play throughout the work, as the individual faces the collective, ancient Chinese practices negotiate with contemporary art, unique craftsmanship plays on mass production and the monumental presence of the work grapples with the noticeable absence of each of its creators. Yet it’s the interstitial space between these that is of interest to the artist. By wedging himself in-between, Ai makes room for a generative dialogue between opposing notions – a neutral space in which to operate and drive this politicised act of cultural exchange. 

The power of the work ultimately rests in its accessibility and ambiguity; in the audience’s freedom to draw their own conclusions and interact with the work in whichever way they please. It continues to raise important questions about the role of public art as a platform to communicate urgent issues and subvert orthodox practices, to bring to light peripheral art practices and provide a vital contribution to both discourse and exchange. 

Louise Camu is a writer and visual artist based in London. She is currently studying on the Royal College of Art’s Critical Writing MA

CIRCA 2020 x Ai Weiwei: Recapturing the Tragedy and Corruption Surrounding the Sichuan Earthquake

by Charlie Colville

10th October 2020

As we enter the last quarter of 2020, a new platform for the creation and exhibition of digital art was launched in the heart of Piccadilly Circus. Known as CIRCA, the platform allows for artists to showcase their work and ideas in the form of a two-minute video on the Piccadilly Lights, one of London’s most famous landmarks.  

CIRCA have recently launched a collaborative project titled c. 20:20, which sees an artist take over the Piccadilly Lights for an entire month. This month will see artist and activist Ai Weiwei deliver a series of videos documenting his career. On each day of October at 20:20 a video produced by Ai’s studio will be shown to the public both in Piccadilly a Circus and online. The project combines video footage, photography, music, poetry, and art to present a colourful retrospective of Ai’s artistic career. Beginning with Ai’s early days in New York and culminating in his most recent projects, the series promises a deeper insight into his art, life, and relationship with the Chinese government.

The first ten days of the project have already managed to establish the explosivity of his career. Viewers are immersed in Ai’s world from the get-go, whether through the nostalgia of his formative years in New York, his commentaries on the subjective value of tradition (The Coloured Vases series), or the impact of state surveillance on his work. 

One of the Key events in Ai’s life and career has been the Sichuan Earthquake of 2008. As the first miniseries within the series, it arguably has a much bigger impact on the viewer by having the ability to go into greater depth in documenting Ai’s involvement and investigation.

The Sichuan Earthquake, 2008

Back in 2008, an earthquake hit the Chinese province of Sichuan. Measuring as the eighteenth deadliest earthquake of all time, it badly devastated the area and caused nearly 90,000 casualties in total. Over 5000 of these recorded deaths, however, were children. Due to the poor infrastructure of many buildings in Sichuan, in particular schools, many within the surrounding district collapsed during the earthquake with thousands of students still trapped inside. 

The collapse of over 7000 school classrooms encouraged a series of allegations that the government officials and construction companies involved in building these structures were corrupt. Reports emerged discussing the negligence of these bodies, in particular their disregard of civil engineering standards. It was also suggested that the local government had taken shortcuts in building to save and pocket money for themselves.

The reports culminated in protests from grieving parents, which continued despite local governments’ alleged attempts to pay off their silence. The protests led to a pledge from the Chinese federal government that they would follow up the investigation, but nothing substantial was set in motion and international media continued to condemn their response.

SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE | STUDENTS’ NAMES | SO SORRY

The three videos shown in Piccadilly Circus on the 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th of October aim to show viewers what happened in stages. Using first-hand footage of the earthquake and the clean-up efforts, SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE lays out a brief overview of what happened from the point of view of the people in Sichuan. STUDENTS’ NAMES builds upon the tragedy of the event, following Ai’s investigation into uncovering the names of all the students who lost their lives. The mini-series is rounded off with SO SORRY, which documents the artist’s trip to Sichuan to testify in court on behalf of fellow activist and investigator, Tan Zuoren. This final video solidifies the distrust in the Chinese government’s actions by highlighting acts of police brutality, specifically how officers broke into Ai’s hotel room on the eve of the trial and assaulted him. 

The videos bring together a narrative of the events from the perspective of the artist, tackling the sensitive topic through a combination of documentary footage, art, and social criticisms. 

SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE starts the mini-series with an emotional and dramatic retelling of the events of the earthquake. With the first segment filmed in black and white, the artist highlights the severity of the situation and instils a growing sense of horror as the chaos continues. The use of black and white gives the footage a much older feel; the earthquake only happened in 2008, yet the footage shown to us makes it seem decades older. This choice of colour perhaps reflects a commentary on the fact that events such as this have been relegated to the past by both media outlets and the Chinese government, the latter of whom left the event without further investigation. These scenes are later juxtaposed by colour footage of recovery efforts and newly-built graves, proving a contrasting message to the black and white images of physical destruction: those affected have not forgotten, and their journey to rebuilding their community is still ongoing. 

The video ends with a look into Ai’s installation piece ‘Straight’, which is made up of ninety tonnes of steel reinforcing rods. Recovered after the earthquake and straightened out by hand, these steel rods have been laid out in broken undulations to represent the geological fault lines that can be produced by earthquakes. The artwork provides the final and lasting image of the video and a physical reminder that a small structural fault had devastating widespread consequences. 

STUDENTS’ NAMES follows the tragedy of the previous video by compiling Ai’s investigative efforts into a long list of names. Each name represents a student who was killed during the earthquake, making up a moving list that lasts for over half of the video. The sheer number of names listed on a black screen puts into perspective the scale of the tragedy, creating an unsettling experience for the viewer as they gradually realise what the names represent and just how many there are. 

This realisation comes in the last twenty seconds of the video, as the names come together to make up footage of a child being carried away from the rubble for emergency attention. The image of their limp body combined with the names onscreen solidifies that the work isn’t about a list of names, but the children who were victims of a corrupt government. 

SO SORRY highlights this sense of corruption by collating several clips from one of Ai’s documentaries (also titled ‘So Sorry’) to emphasise the brutality and violence of the current surveillance state. The video outlines several events following the earthquake, but what stands out most is the trial, Ai’s altercation with police officers, and his subsequent hospitalisation and surgery. One of the main events, Ai’s surgery, is shot with all the drama of a hospital soap opera despite the very real outline of what has happened; highlighting how Ai became a victim of state violence. 

The harm inflicted on the artist, as a means of trying to enforce silence, places less focus on the tragedy of the earthquake. Instead, viewers are given the opportunity to identify with Ai’s plight. As such, CIRCA arguably fulfils its purpose in connecting artist and audience, as people become more connected to the person behind the artistic material. Rather than just be aware of an artwork or video, people can get to know Ai directly through his experiences and how he looks back on them. Through the artist’s lens, the narrative of these incidents opens the stage for greater criticism of the Chinese government’s handling of so-called ‘dissidents’, and invites audiences to engage with these ideas. 

The video has an abrupt end, with the artist’s camera being directed to the floor and quickly shut off by an officer. As Ai scuffles with the man to hold onto his camera, the words ‘THEY HAVE TO HAVE AN ENEMY’ play on the screen in bold letters. The statement provides a commentary on the way that the Chinese government seem to make enemies out of anyone for the sake of maintaining a sense of control. By making criminals out of victims and those who speak out, they instil a power dynamic which clearly states that the reputation of the state must remain immaculate and rebels must be silenced. Consequently, this final scene showcases the act of stamping out dissidence and emphasises the violent reaction to an investigation meant to bring closure to bereaved families.

The videos showcased so far in the CIRCA 2020 x Ai Weiwei event have provided an energizing start to the project, leaving the art world waiting excitedly for the next daily instalment. The mini-series surrounding the Sichuan earthquake is successful in bringing the viewer back to that moment in time, regardless of whether they lived through it in China or heard about it on the news. Providing a reminder of the injustice, frustrations, unanswered questions, and the tragedy that occurred, the videos help to submerse viewers in the narrative and encourage them to start conversations. By being critical of how the government handled the situation, Ai draws attention to reoccurring issues of power, surveillance, and corruption. A hefty achievement, considering we’re only ten videos in. 

Charlie Colville is the current Arts Editor for Mouthing Off magazine, an online platform  designed to give young people the opportunity to find a new voice – a guttural scream loud enough to arouse fresh ideas, creative thought, and inspire artistic flair.

CIRCA 2020 x Ai Weiwei: Observations on Power and Surveillance

By Charlie Colville

15th October, 2020

As we enter the last quarter of 2020, a new platform for the creation and exhibition of digital art was launched in the heart of Piccadilly Circus. Known as CIRCA, the platform allows for artists to showcase their work and ideas in the form of a two-minute video on the Piccadilly Lights, one of London’s most famous landmarks.  

CIRCA have recently launched a collaborative project titled c. 20:20, which sees an artist take over the Piccadilly Lights for an entire month. This month will see artist and activist Ai Weiwei deliver a series of videos documenting his career. On each day of October at 20:20 a video produced by Ai’s studio will be shown to the public both in Piccadilly a Circus and online. The project combines video footage, photography, music, poetry, and art to present a colourful retrospective of Ai’s artistic career. Beginning with Ai’s early days in New York and culminating in his most recent projects, the series promises a deeper insight into his art, life, and relationship with the Chinese government.

The next five days take us to the half-way point of the project, expanding upon Ai’s artwork and life experiences as we come closer to the present day. In this section, it becomes increasingly apparent just how much of the artist’s career centres around his relationship with the Chinese government. Playing with the power dynamics of images and icons, Ai establishes his capability in using his art to question the authority of existing systems in China- to the apparent distaste of the current administration. 

How Ai Made Headlines for Pissing Off the Chinese Government

As suggested by the videos we have already seen, Ai’s relationship with the Chinese government can be viewed as tenuous at best and violent at worst. The events of the Sichuan earthquake only scratch the surface of Ai’s history of run-ins with the authorities, and the next set of videos express an even more complicated relationship than previously thought. 

Ai hasn’t been shy about showing the world his interactions with China’s surveillance state, often documenting his interactions on videos, photographs, and social media posts. In 2011 for example, the artist documented how the government demolished his Shanghai studio without warning (see CRABS AND MERMAIDS for the footage). 

That same year, the artist was arrested for suspected “economic crimes”, specifically tax evasion, and was subsequently detained for 81 days. Following his release, Ai was prohibited from leaving Beijing for a year and was consistently kept in news reports for his crimes. A year later, Ai was still being heavily monitored by the police, his studio was surrounded by police cars, and his movements were kept under constant supervision. He was also placed under house arrest by the authorities on multiple occasions, preventing him from attending hearings concerning his alleged tax evasion case. 

Ai’s bail was eventually lifted in 2012, allowing him to leave Beijing. However, his passport had been confiscated by the police and he was prohibited from traveling to other countries due to other suspected crimes. This ban on Ai’s movements continued until 2015, when the artist was given back his passport, but even then, he needed to obtain official permission before travelling.

Consequently, Ai has developed one of the most unconventional relationships ever seen between an artist and their government, prompting many of his artworks to explore the subject.

SURVEILLANCE | LEG GUN | YOURS TRULY

The selected videos build upon these ideas by exploring the themes of surveillance and power. Shown on October 11^th, SURVEILLANCE compiles artwork, photos, and videos of the artist’s experience with state surveillance following his period of detention. With an emphasis of cameras and police surrounding him, the artist highlights the exertion of power on the part of the authorities. In contrast, LEG GUN examines how a viral phenomenon started by Ai in 2014 allowed for certain systems of power to be questioned, flipped, and re-angled. By allowing others to use the visual image of a ‘leg gun’ to perpetuate a trend, the artist illustrates how people are able to put their own spin on something and change its initial meaning. The last video in this section, YOURS TRULY, focuses on a 2014 exhibition by the artist in the former US federal prison on Alcatraz Island. Using the environment of a prison, the artist expands upon the ways people are criminalised for speaking out against their government.

SURVEILLANCE plays on this concept of observation and state intervention by documenting the changes in Ai’s life after his detention period. Followed by cameras and secret police, Ai makes a point of tracking the movements of the people who track him. The majority of the video is set on the streets of Beijing, which gives the video a dramaticism that mirrors crime and police shows on television. It further emphasises the ridiculousness of the situation from Ai’s point of view, producing a commentary on how the government continue to harass and keep tabs on him. 

The ending of the video is also reminiscent of SO SORRY, an earlier video in the CIRCA project. As with SO SORRY, SURVEILLANCE ends with a scuffle between the artist and police over a camera. However, on this occasion the roles have been reversed, and it is Ai who is seen trying to extract the camera from the hands of the secret police. This reversal of power is a sharp contrast from how the artist portrayed himself only a few videos ago. Rather than a victim of state suppression, Ai becomes a vigilante who can assert his own authority. It is this shift which emphasises how, through his art, Ai is able to shake and intimidate the previously impenetrable façade of the government. 

LEG GUN further promotes the use of art as a means of challenging set ideas. The video opens with footage of the ballet ‘The Red Detachment of Women’, where several dancers are seen using their legs as guns to imitate warfare. The show was one of the eight model plays of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, meaning it was one of the only plays that was permitted during the Maoist regime. Meant to paint the communist regime in a valiant light, the narrative conveys a propagandised tale of heroism about the revolution. However, the image of the ballet leg gun is quickly followed by a photo of Ai in a similar pose. The rest of the video shows how, after Ai posted this photo to Instagram, many other people imitated the pose in a viral trend. Hundreds of people can be seen adapting the leg gun in various settings, but the overall effect is playful and humorous, instead of the serious message of communist courage it once was. 

CIRCA notes how, in an interview with society press, “Ai alluded to the fact that power was often exerted in the name of security, but that power was questionable.” Considering this, the artist pushes the idea that power and influence are fluid rather than constant; they don’t remain in one place as long as someone is there to question that authority. The leg gun is an example of this. The once powerful image has been reduced to a silly viral trend, illustrating how images can be taken and reshaped to fit a new idea. 

YOURS TRULY also builds upon how people can connect to promote a vision of a better future, whether or not they are an artist with a platform. The video focuses on an installation on Alcatraz Island, where 176 portraits of political prisoners lined the floors of its famous prison. Each portrait is made out of LEGO bricks in a rainbow of colours, providing a vivid sense of life and personality that contrasts with the sterility of the environment. The bricks themselves play on the metaphor of building and creating, providing a lasting monument to the voices of those with a potential to shape our future. However, a point emphasised with this idea is the fact that each portrait was built by someone that wasn’t the sitter- they needed help to be seen. The symbolism of this act emphasises the need of a support network amongst communities, connecting people in order to build a vision of the future. The letter writing campaign that makes up part of the exhibition further highlights this, establishing the importance of connections and encouraging a discourse where the general public could write to the political prisoners on postcards designed by Ai. 

As with many of the previous videos, YOURS TRULY ends with a message: “Every one of us is a potential convict.” At first, this phrase can be seen to pinpoint the fact that the people whose portraits make up the exhibition should not be considered criminals, as they are pushed into situations where their speaking out results in their detainment. However, by including “us” in this statement, Ai emphasises the fact that all of us are subject to a sense of imprisonment regardless of whether this is physical or not. As societies are brought together under one regime, we all face the possibility of becoming prisoners- either through physical imprisonment or living in silence under an oppressive regime. It is this point of discourse which becomes all the more prominent when being shown in a public space such as Piccadilly Circus’s illuminated billboard. 

As c. 20:20 continues to delve deeper into Ai Weiwei’s life, audiences can get a better sense of how the artist’s experiences have shaped and fuelled his ideas, art, and social commentaries. Each video emphasises the need to be autonomous in mind but part of a connected community, highlighting the relationship between artist and audience, as well as activist and society. 

Charlie Colville is the current Arts Editor for Mouthing Off magazine, an online platform  designed to give young people the opportunity to find a new voice – a guttural scream loud enough to arouse fresh ideas, creative thought, and inspire artistic flair.

Flow of Quotation

By Gertrude Gibbons

17th October, 2020

Quotes flow through these thirty video works by Ai Weiwei as a consistency, forming a narrative through the fragments of film. At times the words repeated are his own; at times they are echoes of other voices from the past including his father, the poet Ai Qing. The quotations appear across the images, at varying stages, alternately contrasting or merging with the colours and motion of the background. 

Quotation offers repetition, authority, validation, direct speech. It suggests an uprooting from a different time or place and a re-situation into the current one. It brings something past, or distant, into the present; quotes offer the possibility of uniting disparate times, places or contexts. As a form of validation, quotation can be a powerful device and means of persuasion. Here in Ai Weiwei’s video works they seem to act as epigraphs to films rather than explanations of them; and their sparing but consistent use gives the words an authority. Quotation also offers itself up for further quotation; it hints at future repetition. Traditionally, wise or validating quotations, like the citation of a proverb, unite people via common reference, bringing familiarity and a gateway into something new. (Quote accompanying Public Art “I think of every attempt I make as a wish to open a door.”) Written rather than spoken aloud, the quotes contain a sense of silence, or a pause, as people read collectively in their heads. By frequently quoting himself, but not ascribing his name to these quotes, Ai Weiwei gives way to expression without binding himself individually and restrictively to the words; his own speech is freely repeated within and alongside these works, given precedence over the name that writes them. Rather than an autographed opinion, it is a provocation to repeat, to speak further with and from other names and voices.  

The absence of his own name in this case also recalls the silence surrounding Ai Weiwei’s name in his native country, and attempts to erase it. When Berlin, I love you was submitted to the Berlin film festival, the producers were told that with Ai Weiwei’s episode and name there, it would never be accepted. As the producers later admitted, China’s power had been underestimated; its censorship is not limited to its nation’s borders, and here their fist extends into the West, into Germany.¹ Ai Weiwei’s name, even outside his native country, was forcibly omitted and erased. Scenes from this censored film, written with Ai Weiwei’s partner Wang Fen, shown on the screen at Piccadilly as Berlin, starring their son Ai Lao. He cycles on a rainy day beside the remains of the Berlin wall. He pauses to communicate wordlessly with a stranger on a bench; they exchange smiles and he cycles on. Its atmosphere is magical and mysterious as the young child finds an old Deutsche mark coin from 1953, and arrives at a darkened street stall filled with random curiosities. Picking up an animal skull from the stall, there is a collision between the inquisitive young face with this hollow-eyed dead creature. He puts the inanimate old object back on the red cloth and turns instead to the man playing accordion. Putting the found coin in the player’s waiting hand, the player tells the boy, “this country doesn’t exist anymore”. In a magic trick, the coin vanishes, replaced by a shining chain the man tells the boy to take. 

The greyness of daylight returns again and the boy is cycling, past the iconic German landmark of the Brandenburg Gate. The child cycles past this symbol of a doorway, an old symbol of a divided city, and now the symbol of New Berlin’s unity. Repeated close attention to his peddling gives a sense of balancing alternation or division, heightened by his different coloured shoes. Its accompanying quote appears: “Freedom of speech is the right from which all others flow”. The past vanishes in the objects that mark it, but it is remembered through speech. Freedom of speech is an open gate, and unification of difference, it is the foundational basis for all other rights. Yet it is always at an edge: the boy cycles a perimeter and boundary. The gate can easily be shut, as it was for this film in Berlin: “You can never take freedom for granted. It rots immediately” (quote for Big Tree). 

These borders and boundaries, via art, have the potential to be destroyed. Ai Weiwei answers a question from Alexandra Pringle in the Guardian: “art can break boundaries: there’s no “refugees” or other names, even “terrorists”, we’re all human”.² Names in the restrictive sense do not exist in art: walls break down between languages, cultures, and definitions. In the last film, Mountains and Seas, which makes use of an ancient text’s (the Shanhaijing) enduring means of expression through mythological creatures, the quote follows: “We cross the same mountains; we cross the same rivers”. This borderless belonging that art has the power to evoke should be at the core of humanity; it should “live in the heart of the people”, and belong to all.³ These screenings enable an open dialogue in the form of a gathering via its public space from the street and online. It asks not be caged or assigned a separate place of belonging. “I am a cage in search of a bird”, Ai Weiwei quotes Franz Kafka in Laziz. The cage searches the bird; the enclosure searches its object to enclose. The silent words search for a bird to fill them, emblematic of freedom. Along with the consistent silently written quotes, the video works convey something of a hole, something missing. In Diary of an Unknown, Jean Cocteau writes of “the shape of emptiness, an emptiness having shape, an emptiness in a void, an emptiness that tortures us because it outlines that which should be, yet the phantom article refuses to name itself”.⁴

Ai Weiwei works against the refusal to name. The “phantom article” might literally be a refused name or a refusal to name, but Ai Weiwei’s video works name that refusal at its missing point. A country, life, object, or past “no longer exists”; but this phantom is carried along the frontier of the freedom of expression, and the memory, recitation, and re-situation of words. Expression comes through and from the silence, the missing parts and names, the unidentified voices.

¹ Ai Weiwei’s segment was cut from ‘Berlin, I Love You’ to appease China, artist and producers say; Ai WeiWei: ‘Berlin, I Love You’ censored following Chinese pressure | DW News

² Ai Weiwei: ‘An artist must be an activist’

³ Ai Weiwei on his new life in Britain: ‘People are at least polite. In Germany, they weren’t’

⁴ Quoted in Cornelia A. Tsakiridou, Reviewing Orpheus: Essays on the Cinema and Art of Jean Cocteau. Bucknell University Press, 1997.

CIRCA 2020 x Ai Weiwei: Investigating the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis

by Charlie Colville

22nd October

As we enter the last quarter of 2020, a new platform for the creation and exhibition of digital art was launched in the heart of Piccadilly Circus. Known as CIRCA, the platform allows for artists to showcase their work and ideas in the form of a two-minute video on the Piccadilly Lights, one of London’s most famous landmarks.  

CIRCA have recently launched a collaborative project titled c. 20:20, which sees an artist take over the Piccadilly Lights for an entire month. This month will see the artist and activist Ai Weiwei deliver a series of videos documenting his career. On each day of October at 20:20 a video produced by Ai’s studio will be shown to the public both in Piccadilly Circus and online. The project combines video footage, photography, music, poetry, and art to present a colourful retrospective of Ai’s artistic career. Beginning with Ai’s early days in New York and culminating in his most recent projects, the series promises a deeper insight into his art, life, and relationship with the Chinese government.

With CIRCA’s collaboration with Ai Weiwei now nearing the end, the videos shown in Piccadilly Circus have become more reflective of current issues and events. In recent years, Ai’s work has presented an increasing concern for global issues that have affected multiple communities, with a particular focus on the Refugee Crisis and its handling. Many of the documentaries Ai has produced in the last five years have investigated the narratives of refugees in relation to what is portrayed in media, choosing instead to appeal to human emotion and sympathies. As a displaced person himself, Ai has been able to emphasise the impact of this experience on a person and how traumatic it can be. As such, these are key themes for the videos released between the 18^th and 22^nd of October.

The Refugee Crisis

At this point it feels like the Refugee Crisis has been part of mainstream media for a very long time. In 2014, there was a spike in the number of people seeking sanctuary in other countries, with the total number of refugees reaching almost 60 million by the end of that year. This was the highest number of displaced people in the world since World War Two. Many of these refugees came from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Deaths are common amongst those seeking asylum in other countries, and in 2015 the number of deaths at sea rose to record levels. In April, five boats carrying around 2000 migrants to Europe sank in the Mediterranean Sea. The death toll was estimated at over 1200. One of the most well-recognised deaths in 2015 was that of Alan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy whose drowned body washed up on a beach in Turkey. The photograph of Kurdi’s photograph is one of the most famous in characterising the human consequences surrounding the travel of asylum seekers.

The response to the Refugee Crisis in the UK has been characterised as chaotic and hostile. During the EU Referendum, a key motive for the LEAVE campaign was the implementation of better border control and a stricter immigration system. With Britain leaving the EU officially on the 31^st January this year, the message could not come clearer that an anti-immigration movement is still going strong.

The Refugee Crisis is an issue that still persists today. In August of this year, UK media began reporting a quickly expanding predicament of people attempting to cross the Channel in small boats.

As mentioned, Ai can be considered an asylum seeker himself. After getting his passport back from the Chinese authorities in 2015, the artist resettled in Germany. Spending time in one of the most sought-after destination points for asylum seekers, Ai soon became involved in documenting the issues faced by refugees.  

AT SEA | ODYSSEY | LAW OF THE JOURNEY

The following videos highlight how the Refugee Crisis has impacted us on a global scale in recent years, using the opportunity to highlight human tragedy and encourage sympathy. AT SEA is comprised of footage showing the arrival of refugees into Greece, which was later used by the artist in ‘Human Flow’, a documentary addressing the Refugee Crisis. ODYSSEY builds upon the human consequences and tragedy surrounding the journey of many refugees, combining the poster series ‘Good Neighbours’ and the portrait series ‘Banners’ from Ai’s public art exhibition ‘Good Fences Make Good Neighbours’. LAW OF THE JOURNEY concludes this section of Ai’s video series with an animated artwork from 2016. The images correspond to those seen in ‘Human Flow’, providing a visual statement on the way refugees are seen and treated. 

AT SEA acts as the introductory video to this section of the series, establishing a focus on the refugee crisis and how it has been perceived through multiple points of view. The footage shows refugees being received in Greece, as their boats reach the shore. This section is comprised of multiple views of these boats approaching the shore, from shaky telescope images to distant aerial views. This play on perspective forms the bulk of footage and creates a visual metaphor for how the Refugee Crisis itself is perceived, as both something detached from main society (and therefore not a direct issue for us to solve) yet still considered too close for comfort. The alternation of long and short distances, which take place from the shore and the sea respectively, may also highlight the “them and us” divide that dominates the argument over the Refugee Crisis in many European countries.

Nevertheless, the latter part of the video emphasises the human presence behind the issue through footage of graves and the building of refugee camps. The latter of these is emphasised by the building of walls and borders, with footage taken from the point of view of someone looking into the camps. Again, perspective is utilised by Ai to highlight both sides of an issue, but the artist builds upon this idea through an emphasis of human interaction- we can see how people live in these camps, and it’s not scary or unfamiliar. As the artist states at the end of the video, “The border is not in Lesbos, it is in our minds and in our hearts.” As such, Ai provides a commentary on how the Refugee Crisis is not considered from a human perspective, but rather from social and economic prejudices. 

ODYSSEY builds on Ai’s commentary on the Refugee Crisis through a combination of two artworks: ‘Banners’ and ‘Good Neighbours’. ‘Banners’ starts and ends the video with a selection of portraits of both contemporary and historical refugees. What makes the opening distinct, however, is that the portraits at the beginning of the video focus only on the eyes of each person. As such, the viewer is forced to make eye contact and establish a brief relationship with each person. This sense of creating a human connection becomes central to the video. 

These portraits fade out into an animated version of Ai’s poster series, ‘Good Neighbours’, which depicts a silhouetted narrative of the Refugee Crisis. From the initial troubles in the refugees’ home countries, to fleeing, to coming across the ocean to Europe, the video visualises many refugees’ experiences as vulnerable people who have become victims of unfortunate circumstances. 

More shots from ‘Banners’ end the video, but this time they show the full face of each person captured in a portrait. Again, we are encouraged to connect with each person, as the story put to these people pushes the viewer to acknowledge that actual people went through these events to get to where they are today. It highlights the idea that a refugee is a person, rather than a concept. 

The video ends with Ai’s commentary: “The refugee crisis is a human crisis.” Once again, the artist makes an appeal to human emotion and sympathy, encouraging the viewer to connect with the people shown rather than the idea of a refugee. It also provides another layer of discourse to the issue, more specifically how labels are used to disconnect our judgement from our sense of collective humanity.  

LAW OF THE JOURNEY rounds off the series with another animated version of one of Ai’s previous artworks (also titled ‘Law of the Journey’). The video depicts rubber people in rubber boats undertaking the journey of refugees at sea. With the emphasis of rubber, the animated artwork emphasises how people often see the boat first rather than the people inside- the image of the refugee is one that has been superseded by the fear of the boat invading our space. The rubber removes any distinct anthropomorphic quality so that all that is left is the vague outline of each person, leaving very little for viewers to connect with emotionally and on a human scale. Again, this is largely reflective of the way these people are portrayed in media outlets; not quite human, but rather objects of fascination. 

However, Ai uses this to continue his appeal to the viewer’s human sentiment. At the video’s climax, hundreds of bodies are shown falling into the water and drowning, but the main figure is a young child shown face down. This figure is a striking resemblance to Alan Kurdi, which further emphasises the shock factor and human consequence of the Refugee Crisis. Despite how they are perceived as ‘other’, the fact is that they are vulnerable people willing to risk their lives for a better start somewhere else.

There are numerous theatrical characteristics in this video, arguably more than any of the others shown so far by Ai. From the operatic soundtrack and spotlights to the emphasis of a tragic narrative, the artist highlights how this situation has become a show for us to observe. As such, it criticises our role as the viewer – by not doing anything, we have become complicit in the tragedy depicted.

These videos showcase recent and recognisable circumstances which impact refugees on a global scale. Compared to his previous videos, Ai engages with the public in a way that is more confrontational- exposing viewers to the realities and human consequences that they otherwise may not see. With UK attitudes to the Refugee Crisis arguably more on the side of sceptical and hostile, Ai’s videos are an attempt to present a more human-centric appeal for the British public’s support. 

We’re now approaching the end of October, and the end of Ai’s collaboration with CIRCA. With only a handful of videos left, I’m excited to see how Ai brings more of his work into the present and focuses on his more recent experiences.

Charlie Colville is the current Arts Editor for Mouthing Off magazine, an online platform  designed to give young people the opportunity to find a new voice – a guttural scream loud enough to arouse fresh ideas, creative thought, and inspire artistic flair.

ANIMALITY 

By Stephanie Gavan

24th October, 2020

I’m thinking about animals, about Ai Weiwei and his cats. I’m thinking of the 40 feline creatures that populate his Beijing compound, how it must feel to have your daily life surveilled by 80 prying eyes. In doing so I’m reminded of another cat, Logos, the siamese pet of Jacques Derrida, and the now famous encounter that took place between them. When emerging from the shower one morning, Derrida found himself disarmed by the fixed gaze of the cat upon his body. Caught off guard, not only by Logos the cat, but by the unexpected shame of his nudity before this animal who looks on ‘just to see’.¹ What is it to be seen by one’s cat, or by any animal? Encounters like these disturb our complacency about what it is to be human, they invite us to consider not so much what we know about animals, but what they force us to acknowledge about ourselves, that which we ignore. When the animal looks back, we are exposed. In it’s bottomless gaze; a call, a cry, a plea for a response.

Presenting scenes of mass commercial livestock farming, slaughterhouses, religious ritual and environmental destruction, Ai Weiwei’s ANIMALITY is a stark portrait of human-animal relations in the present. Camels are paraded through a frenzied crowd, bucking as they’re beaten with sticks from either side, their evident distress matched not with compassion, but with violent eruption, the carnivalesque overspill of the human appetite for domination. We bear witness to ‘what happens to the fraternity of brothers when an animal enters the scene.’²  Expelled, their mouths are bound with rope as they’re herded onto a lorry. Actions that insist Do not look. Do not respond. 

The human capacity for cruelty is long documented, and no being has borne the brunt of that suffering longer than the animal. Blood covers the ground of a ritual ceremony, a thick red carpet furnished with the headless carcasses of goats. One dismembered head is wrapped in ribbon, a gift, offered to the gods upon a burning mound. In his discussion on ‘Eating Well’³ Derrida notes that all cultures are organized around a notion of sacrifice that provides a space for the ‘non-criminal putting to death’ of the animal. The act of killing in ritual contexts binds the collective through guilt, while identification rests on the act of consumption, the shared meal. This carnivorism is reflected everywhere in contemporary relations. Whether sacrificed or regulated, animals are killed and exchanged so that human society is possible. Binding us together through the flesh and blood of their bodies, they reassure us of what we are not.  

Weiwei’s footage of caged animals is haunting. Dogs, Tigers, Lions, Bears. The spectre of the animal shapes not only how we respond to non human beings but stews at the core of our justice and legal systems to perpetuate an exclusionary juridical logic. Who possesses the right to live, and under what circumstances? In these systems, Animals are the absent referents,⁴ the nameless and invisible bodies that must be excluded for politics to exist. Despite the ethical choices we may make as individuals, a framework of structural carnivorism demands that on some level we accept the violence committed against non-subjects, especially animals. We all have skin in the game. And like thieves in the night, it is the abstraction of violence inherent in these systems that serve to neutralize and sustain it. When the animal looks upon us, we long to look away. 

ANIMALITY clarifies, it holds up a mirror to the suffering we subject animals to, and by extension, all others deemed non human. A pack of undead dogs are resigned to a half-life beyond the bars, their spare and sorry frames litter the floor of their enclosure. One looks out – the dark abyss of its eyes speaks of knowing. Cut to a table of canine flesh, skinned and stiff, muscle and bone. The hacksaw lands and the feast ensues. The economy of meat. In Totem and Taboo, Freud notes that in some rites, the guilt-ridden instrument with which the killing was done was banished to the sea.⁵ And as the lazy susan slowly turns, there is not a knife in sight. 

The animal body is of course not the only property that is claimed in the human pursuit of conquest. Their habitats, too, bodies of land that we short-sightedly exploit. In ‘The Second Body’, Daisy Hidyard proposes that every living being has two bodies; the physical flesh-and-bone, the body which eats and sleeps, and the second body, an uncanny global presence that encompasess our environmental impacts. Through a desolate floodscape, the brittle branches of remaining trees are mirrored by shots of small dying birds. Their twig-like claws, little forks, caught in nets of nylon and polyester. We spin the most careless of webs. The camera, a surrogate second body, taking notes as it hovers over our destruction. Cause, effect, cause, effect. 

As the film progresses, so too does the abstraction of violence. Cosmic ripples of sound conspire with imagery of industrial fish farms to present something beautiful and alien; seemingly innocent blue lemons that bob on the surface of our oceans. The sound distills to a mechanical chime as we’re transported to the killing floors, the factory line of the animal-commodity. An ongoing procession of stunning, exsanguination, skinning, scalding, dehiring, evisceration, splitting. The repetition is numbing. In the final scene an industrial structure is adorned by waves of animal flesh, tidal in its enormity. I struggle to identify what these beings once may have looked like. All I see is roses, pink and blooming. This is what allows humans to hide from and disavow suffering. It is the vehicle of violence and the mechanism that enables us to distance ourselves from it. It is the veil that prevents us from looking. 

ANIMALITY shows up-close the ways in which humans imprison themselves and others in relations of suffering. ‘This is the animal’s world; they are willing to live with us’ writes Weiwei, but are we willing to live with ourselves? Perhaps it is only when we relinquish the idea of animals as objects, brutes or property that we can begin to foster a human kinship based on dignity and difference. “The animal looks at us and we are naked before it’, Derrida notes, ‘Thinking perhaps begins there’.⁶ The animal walks on, all seeing, across the terrain that binds us; hooved, horned, winged, gilled. A swollen expanse that howls to be closed. Look, I am here. Respond. 

¹ Derrida, Jacques. 2002. The animal that therefore I am (more to follow). Translated by David Wills. Critical inquiry (28). 

² Ibid, p.381.

³ Cadava, E., Connor, P. and Nancy, J.-L. (1991). Who comes after the subject? New York: Routledge, pp.96–119.

⁴ Adams, C.J. (2019). The sexual politics of meat : a feminist-vegetarian critical theory. New York ; London Bloomsbury, p.14

⁵ Sigmund Freud and Strachey, J. (2001). Totem and taboo : some points of agreement between the mental lives of savages and neurotics. London ; New York: Routledge, p.159

⁶ Derrida, Jacques. 2002. The animal that therefore I am (more to follow). Translated by David Wills. Critical inquiry (28). P. 397.