I think Ai Weiwei’s offering in the Tate Turbine Hall may be my favourite so far. The radical Chinese artist has filled the hall with none other than sunflower seeds – or rather, porcelain replicas of them (so no, they ain’t edible). 150 tonnes were shipped into the huge hall – amounting to 100 million ‘seeds’ in total, each one painstakingly handmade.
Though it’s quite a visual spectacle in itself, Weiwei’s artwork takes on a new significance upon hearing what inspired it: Twitter. Though it might seem like an unlikely source of inspiration, any Weiwei fans will know that the Chinese artist spends hours and hours each day on the social networking site. Twitter, alongside many other Western sites is of course banned in China. For Weiwei and his thousands of followers, who access the site through foreign servers, even the most mundane 140-character message is a political statement.
With this in mind, each one of these seeds, crunching under the feet of Tate visitors, represents Weiwei’s fellow tweeters – or civilians living under Mao’s oppressive regime in China. Though lying dormant – and being walked all over – each one is unique, carefully created and valuable. And who knows what an unattended seed might grow into.
Rosa Abbott is an arts, fashion and culture obsessive originating from Yorkshire, England, and currently living in Dublin, Ireland. On top of being a student at the illustrious Trinity College, she is a freelance journalist, writing for a number of Irish publications, and also edits the visual arts section of entertainment magazine Totally Dublin.
When she’s not up to her eyeballs in writing, Rosa works as an assistant to stylist Aisling Farinella and volunteers at various art galleries. Her musings on life, style and art can also be found over at her blog, Too Gallant.
