Ai Weiwei to Reenact His Detention in First Durational Performance
Ai Weiwei will reenact his 2011 detention in his first durational endurance performance, Sewing a Button, staged over 24 hours beginning at 5 p.m. on July 3 at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, home of Factory International. The work coincides with his forthcoming show there and will place Ai inside a replica of his 25.92-square-meter cell built by architecture firm Hawkins\Brown, where he will sleep, eat, exercise, write, wash, and undergo interrogations. Four journalists and broadcasters—Nihal Arthanayake, Emma Dabiri, Lemn Sissay, and Zing Tsjeng—will question him on personal, political, and philosophical topics, while nine actors play guards and doctors, and electronic duo Space Afrika provides a soundscape. Ai said he is revisiting the experience because harm by states has become widespread, and he referenced what he described as the United States abducting the President of Venezuela as evidence of unlawful practices across politics. Ai was held for 81 days in 2011 on tax-evasion accusations without formal charges, has lived abroad since his passport was returned in 2015, and returned to China for the first time in a decade in January.
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This story was covered in Restitution Showdowns, Museums at Breaking Point