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AI WEIWEI
R itual (detail), from the work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
One of six dioramas in fiberglass and iron
376.9 × 198.1 × 152.9 cm
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Ai Weiwei’s engagement to human rights is notorious. But, would this be enough to place him among environmentally concerned artists? A closer look at the relevance of the exercise of human rights to the protection of our natural and built environments may gives us some insights on reasons that could justify Ai Weiwei’s merit as a contributor to the building of a path towards a sustainable world.
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| Ai Weiwei in elevator after arrest. 2011 |
Human rights and the environment are not only interrelated, they are also inherently interdependent. A healthy environment is fundamentally important to the enjoyment of human rights, and the exercise of human rights is necessary for a healthy environment.
When governments around the world fail to restrict emissions of greenhouse gases, jeopardizing the continued existence of, among others, vulnerable communities in the Arctic and in low-lying coastal areas, they fail to protect many human rights, including rights to life, health, food, water, housing and self-determination.
In a real sense, all human rights are vulnerable to environmental degradation, in that the full enjoyment of all human rights depends on a supportive environment. However, some human rights are more susceptible than others to certain types of environmental harm. In recent years, in addition to reaffirming the general point that “environmental damage can have negative implications, both direct and indirect, for the effective enjoyment of human rights”, the United Nations Human Rights Council has identified environmental threats to particular rights. To give three examples, it has:
1) affirmed that illicit traffic in, and improper management and disposal of, hazardous substances and wastes constitute a serious threat to a range of rights, including the rights to life and health;
2) underlined that climate change has a wide range of implications for the effective enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water, housing and self-determination;
3) recognized that “environmental degradation, desertification and global climate change are exacerbating destitution and desperation, causing a negative impact on the realization of the right to food, in particular in developing countries”.
Human rights are grounded in the respect for fundamental human attributes such as dignity, equality and liberty. The realization of these attributes depends on an environment that allows them to flourish. Simultaneously, effective environmental protection often depends on the exercise of human rights that are vital to informed, transparent and responsive environmental policymaking.
Human rights that are vital to environmental policymaking include rights to freedom of expression and association, rights to receive information and participate in decision-making processes, and rights to legal remedies. When directed at environmental issues, the exercise of such rights results in policies that better reflect the concerns of those most concerned and, as a result, that better safeguard their rights to life and health, among others, from infringement through environmental harm.
Procedural rights are protected by many human rights instruments. For example, rights of freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, participation in government and effective remedies for violations of rights are recognized in the Universal Declaration (arts. 7, 8, 19, 20 and 21) and elaborated on in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (arts. 2, 19, 21, 22 and 25), both of which also make clear that the rights are not subject to discrimination. Even though these instruments do not explicitly address environmental issues, they undoubtedly encompass the exercise of the rights for environmental ends.
Another important instrument in this regard is the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which sets out, inter alia: rights to meet peacefully to promote and protect human rights; to seek and obtain information about human rights, to disseminate information about human rights and to draw attention to whether they are observed in practice; to have effective access to participation in government; and to benefit from remedies for human rights violations, including by having complaints of such violations promptly reviewed by independent and competent legal authorities and receiving redress. Again, these rights apply no less to human rights defenders seeking to exercise them for the protection of the environment than they do for other purposes protective of the full enjoyment of human rights.
In practice, environmental human rights defenders have proved to be especially at risk when trying to exercise these rights. The United Nations Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders has reported in 2011 that she received many communications concerning environmental activists, “including those working on issues related to extractive industries, and construction and development projects; those working for the rights of indigenous and minority communities; women human rights defenders; and journalists”. Environmental rights defenders face a high risk of killings, attacks, assault, threats and intimidation from both State and non-State actors. Needless to say, the primary effect of these human rights violations is felt by the individuals and communities who suffer from them. But the violations also have secondary effects on the environment that the individuals were trying to protect and on all of those whose full enjoyment of human rights depends upon that environment.
On April 22, 2015 - Earth Day - Global Witness released its most recent report on the killings of environmental defenders worldwide. In 2014, they reported to have found 116 cases of killings of land and environmental defenders in 17 countries – on average more than two victims per week and almost double the number of journalists killed in the same year. Around three-quarters of these deaths took place in Central and South America, with South East Asia the second-most affected region. Brazil is again the worst-hit country, followed by Colombia, the Philippines and Honduras.
2014 saw an increase in murders relating to hydropower projects, with mining, agribusiness and logging also among the key drivers. Disputes over the ownership, control and use of land formed a backdrop to nearly all of the fatalities. Indigenous groups are increasingly finding themselves on the frontline of the scramble for land and natural resources, accounting for 40% of killings in 2014.
Ai Weiwei has also been at risk while exercising the human right of freely expressing concern about environmental issues and corruption. In 2009, Ai Weiwei was briefly detained and severely beaten by security officials just before he was due to testify for the defense during the trial of Tan Zuoren, an environmental activist who, along with Ai Weiwei, had documented the names of thousands of children who were buried underneath the rubble of collapsed schools during the May, 2008 Sichuan earthquake, possibly because of the very poor quality of the built environment of educational institutions (expected to be always safe for children), which may be the result of corruption. As the buildings around the schools remained conspicuously unharmed, accusations were made of botched building work; these, however, were rejected by the government.
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UNEQUAL DAMAGE. Xinjian Primary School in Dujiangyan was destroyed, while a kindergarten, at left, and a hotel were barely damaged by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
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On 20 March 2009, he posted a blog titled "Citizens' Investigation" and wrote: "To remember the departed, to show concern for life, to take responsibility, and for the potential happiness of the survivors, we are initiating a "Citizens' Investigation." We will seek out the names of each departed child, and we will remember them.
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| Parents grieving the death of their children, who were in poorly built schools during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake |
A few days later, Tan Zuoren – who had joined Ai Weiwei’s call - was detained on allegations for subversion of state power and, further, sentenced to a to 5 years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power.” Tan coined the expression 「豆腐渣」 (tofu dreg project) to describe the shoddy construction quality of Sichuan schools – which might be linked to corruption - that cost the lives of so many children.
As of 14 April 2009, the list had accumulated 5,385 names. Ai Weiwei published the collected names as well as numerous articles documenting the investigation on his blog which was shut down by Chinese authorities in May 2009. He also posted his list of names of schoolchildren who died on the wall of his office at FAKE Design in Beijing.
"As of September 2, 2009, there were 4,851 confirmed. This video is a tribute to these perished students and a memorial for innocent lives lost." - Ai Weiwei
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| __(i) Ai Weiwei with his list of names of schoolchildren who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, posted on the wall of his office at FAKE Design in Beijing, May 2009 __(ii) Ai Weiwei, Remembering, 2009, backpacks on the facade of the Haus der Kunst* (Munich). "Remembering" has been designed for the Haus der Kunst’s façade consisting of 9,000 backpacks made specifically for this purpose. With this installation Ai Weiwei recalls the earthquake in Sichuan since many backpacks of the buried children were found under the collapsed schools. The backpacks on the façade are in one of five colors and arranged to spell out the sentence "She lived happily for seven years in this world" in Chinese characters. These words stem from the mother of one of the earthquake victims commemorating her daughter. The pixel-like effect of the large image stretches across the entire façade. It is 100 meters long and ten meters high, and attached to the columns in front of the building with a steel structure. __(iii) list of the names of children who tragically died in schools during the Sichuan earthquake in May 2009, displayed at Smitsonian Hirshhorn Museum, 2013 |
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| Ai Weiwei, September 2009 |
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| School bags are collected from the rubble of a collapsed school at Nanba Centre Primary in the earthquake-hit Pingwu County, Sichuan province. |
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| Ai Weiwei, “Snake Ceiling,” 2009 (backpacks) |
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| Ai Weiwei, “Snake Ceiling,” 2009 (backpacks), the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. The work on the ceiling resembles a giant snake composed of various sized backpacks representing children in elementary through junior high school, “laid out as a requiem for the souls of those who perished in the disaster.” |
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| Ai Weiwei, Straight, 2008-12 (38 tons of steel rebar). The rebar is recovered from schools that collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. |
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| Ai Weiwei, Straight, 2008-12 (detail) |
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| Many of the schools that collapsed in the 2008 earthquake in China's Sichuan province were found to have flawed iron reinforcement. (for more information, see slide presentation "Design for Disaster") |
“The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.”— Ai Weiwei
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| Ai Weiwei releasing his heavy metal single "Dumbass" from the album "The Divine Comedy", 2013 According to Ai, the music video for “Dumbass” is a precise and detailed simulation of the prison he was in. Every detail in the room was reconstructed; even the soldier’s uniform was custom-made. The video dives in and out between the prison’s reality and the soldier’s fantasies, it is surreal yet realistic. Ai said, “When I was detained, I memorized every single detail of the room because I had nothing else to do, and I really believed that the story should be told because it was so incredible. The song and this video are the best forms to represent that experience. Everyone who’s been through similar trauma has been hurt, the anger and feelings are difficult to release, and I am using imagery and sound to overcome the fear. As an artist, it is my job to find a way for that.” |
Music video for 'Dumbass', the first track from Ai Weiwei's heavy metal album Divine Comedy.
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| Ai Weiwei’s ‘S.A.C.R.E.D’ installation is a six-part work composed of six iron boxes depicting scenes from the chinese artist’s 81-day incarceration back in 2011. Divided accordingly: (i) Supper, (ii) Accusers, (iii) Cleansing, (iv) Ritual, (v) Entropy, and (vi) Doubt, each unit has small apertures – similar to those found on a prison cell door–for which viewers may peer into the diaoramas where Ai Weiwei has positioned realist models of himself with his captors, documenting painstaking moments of his captivity in detail, and the surveillance he was under during all times (meals, bathing, going to the washroom, sleeping). The 2013 Venice Art Biennale marked the first time that Ai Weiwei responded to his detainment in the form of a public exhibition. No aspect of his life during this period has gone unaddressed–revealing the humiliation he experienced – by illustrating the most intimate and difficult moments he went through, underlining the suffering himself and other individuals have endured at the hands of authorities in china, as well as across the world, who seek to constrain freedom of expression with force. |
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AI WEIWEI
detail from the work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
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AI WEIWEI
detail from the work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
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AI WEIWEI
detail from the work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
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| AI WEIWEI
A ccusers (detail), from the work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
One of six dioramas in fiberglass and iron
376.9 × 198.1 × 152.9 cm
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AI WEIWEI
S upper (detail), from the work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
One of six dioramas in fiberglass and iron
376.9 × 198.1 × 152.9 cm
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AI WEIWEI
overall view of installation work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
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AI WEIWEI
overall view of installation work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011-13
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| AI WEIWEI Ye Haiyan's Belongings at 6:35 a.m. on July 6, 2013, Brooklyn Museum, 2013 Ai WeiWei's installation dedicated to the feminist organizer and AIDS awareness campaigner Ye Haiyan’s belongings. On 6 July 2012 in the city of Zhongshan, Ye and her family were kidnapped and dumped on the side of a road with all of their belongings. Weiwei offered financial assistance and had Ye’s belongings moved to his studio. The installation painstakingly reproduces all of the objects that were left at the side of a road. The room is wallpapered with images of everything she owned down to photos of individual socks. The photo on which the installation is based is eerily beautiful. The morning sunlight creates a kind of muted tenebrism, and the picture is both balanced and composed like a pastoral landscape. The beauty of the overall image contradicts the emotion of the picture in which a family is completely abandoned without resource or hope. |
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| Ai Weiwei: Blossom, 2014 (installation detail, Alcatraz Hospital) |
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| Ai Weiwei: Blossom, 2014 (installation detail, Alcatraz Hospital) |
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| Ai Weiwei: Blossom, 2014 (installation detail, Alcatraz Hospital) In this work, Ai Weiwei quietly transforms the utilitarian fixtures in several Hospital ward cells and medical offices, in the Alcatraz Island, into delicate porcelain bouquets. The artist has designed intricately detailed encrustations of ceramic flowers to fill the sinks, toilets, and tubs that were once used by hospitalized prisoners. Blossom draws on and alters natural imagery as well as traditional Chinese arts. Rather than referring to national iconography, however, the flowers here carry other associations. The work could be seen as symbolically offering comfort to the imprisoned, as one would send a bouquet to a hospitalized patient. The profusion of flowers rendered in a cool and brittle material could also be an ironic reference to China’s famous Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956, a brief period of government tolerance for free expression that was immediately followed by a severe crackdown against dissent. |
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| Ai Weiwei, Sunflower Seeds (installation), Tate Modern, 2012 The installation is comprised of millions (five tons) of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds. Each actual-size seed is unique and intricately hand-formed and painted by artisans in the historic porcelain-producing city of Jingdezhen in northern Jiangxi, China. The sunflower, with its destiny to follow the sun, became a common metaphor for The People during China’s Cultural Revolution. At the same time, the seeds of the flower provided sustenance at all levels of society, and the ubiquitous discarded husks provided evidence of an individual’s existence. Ai Weiwei demonstrates that a staggering quantity of individual seeds may produce a deceptively unified field. The work is a commentary on social, political and economic issues pertinent to contemporary China: the role of the individual versus the masses, and China’s long history of labor-intensive production and export. |
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| Ai Weiwei, Rooted upon, 2009, 100 pieces of tree trunks, 640 x 3500 x 1100 cm |
Bjorn Geldhof, Deputy Artistic Manager of the PinchukArtCentre talking about the work by Ai Weiwei: Rooted Upon at China China show at the PinchukArtCentre
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| Tate Gallery, London, 2011 |
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