China’s exiled contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei is running human rights up the flagpole. He has designed a flag to mark the 70th anniversary of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The flag is light blue with a white footprint made out of a series of dots. The flag was based on a photo of muddy footprints of Rohingya refugees who were fleeing attacks by solders in Myanmar.
Contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has designed a flag for human rights, marking the 70th anniversary of The Declaration of Human Rights.
“[The flag] relates to everybody who has been forced to flee… There is nothing more human than a footprint.” – Ai Weiwei told The Guardian.
The project is part of Fly the Flag for human rights awareness, which pairs arts organisations and human rights charities including the Tate and Amnesty International. The project will provide creative resources and learning tools to students aged 5 to 18 across the UK.
Ai Weiwei has long understood what it means to lack basic Human Rights. As a five-year-old child, he was exiled from his home in Xinjiang – his radical poet father seen as a threat to freedom.
He has chased human rights themes in his art for over 40 years, relying on his own experiences. In 2011, life caught up with him when he was imprisoned by Chinese authorities.
One of his projects involved 300 cage installations – representing borders and fences – around New York City to highlight the issue of immigration. He also released a documentary in 2017 on the refugee crisis called Human Flow.
Weiwei has lived in exile in Berlin since 2015. In The Guardian on 10 December, he compared Germany in 2018 to Germany in the 1930s.
His latest art show Ai Weiwei: Life Cycle is showing in Los Angeles until March 3 and looks at the global refugee crisis.
Via It’s Nice That.
