Awareness Post #3 - Ai Weiwei1/20/2018 Ai Weiwei is a contemporary artist based in Beijing, China. He focuses on powerful socio-politically charged works that forward an agenda against authoritarian governments. He has made documentaries, music, and large scale sculptural projects. He takes an open stance against China's democratic and human rights views, and, for that reason, he has been detained and placed under house arrest by the government. One of Ai Weiwei's most famous works is "Sunflower Seeds" which is composed of millions of small, hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds. Each seed is unique and made by a person in Jingdezhen, China. It is a powerful commentary on the "Made in China" phenomenon as well as international trade considering the fact that porcelain is one of the most traded products from China. I love this work. Not only was the creation of it the product of hundreds of people from an incredibly small, rural town in China, but it brought together a community. The community effort behind this work is phenomenal. Furthermore, its display originally allowed people to walk on the seeds and invited those to interact with the art. Imagine touching something that someone from across the world created with their own two hands! The fact that each and every seed is different is still mind boggling to me. I would love to see it in its entire glory and just bask in the amount of hard work and effort that must have been used to make such art. I want to create artwork that has such a large social impact like this. Interactive art, I believe, is some of the most interesting works as it can bring together people and influence viewers in a way stagnant art is incapable of doing. I hope to participate in an interactive art piece or initiate one as it sounds amazing to do.
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March 2020
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