UK - London - Sunflower Seeds art installation by Ai Weiwei at Tate Modern

Ai Weiwei, one of China’s leading conceptual artists, has undertaken the eleventh commission in The Unilever Series at Tate Modern in London. Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. These life-sized sunflower seed husks are intricately hand-crafted in porcelain. Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall’s vast industrial space, the 100 million seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape. Sunflower Seeds is a sensory and immersive installation, on which visitors can touch, walk on and listen to as the seeds shift under our feet. Porcelain is almost synonymous with China and, to make this work, Ai Weiwei has manipulated traditional methods of crafting what has historically been one of China’s most prized exports. Sunflower Seeds invites us to look more closely at the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon and the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today.

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Filename: 20101012tate sunflower seedsZ.jpg
Copyright: Mike Kemp
Image Size: 2828x4243 / 1.4MB; Ai Weiwei Wei art artist installation Turbine Hall Unilever series Tate Modern gallery Sun Flower seeds Sunflower seeds inside interior people London English England Britain British UK United Kingdom Michael Mike Kemp art arts museums contemporary
Contained in galleries: 2010

Ai Weiwei, one of China’s leading conceptual artists, has undertaken the eleventh commission in The Unilever Series at Tate Modern in London. Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. These life-sized sunflower seed husks are intricately hand-crafted in porcelain. Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall’s vast industrial space, the 100 million seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape. Sunflower Seeds is a sensory and immersive installation, on which visitors can touch, walk on and listen to as the seeds shift under our feet. Porcelain is almost synonymous with China and, to make this work, Ai Weiwei has manipulated traditional methods of crafting what has historically been one of China’s most prized exports. Sunflower Seeds invites us to look more closely at the ‘Made in China’ phenomenon and the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today.