Artist: Ai Weiwei
Year: 2018
Medium: CNC-cut vinyl
Measurement: 17 x 48 inches
This portrait depicts a refugee from the Dadaab Camp, in Garissa County, Kenya, the world's largest refugee camp. This camp, established in 1991, had a population of 235,269 registered refugees and asylum seekers as of January 31, 2018, far exceeding its original capacity of 90,000. The origin of these refugees is primarily from Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Citing reasons of national security, authorities have threatened to close the camp, which would displace hundreds of thousands of individuals and families, forcing many to return to war-torn Somalia.
Ai and his team's extensive research and visits to refugee camps and national borders around the world have yielded an enormous trove of compelling documentation. Much of this is produced by the artist's nearly constant use of his cell phone to spontaneously photograph the people and scenes around him.
The Dadaab Camp is run by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Public Art Fund will make a donation to USA for UNHCR to support the vital work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as well to the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in recognition of their work supporting displaced people.
The original banner was on view in Manhattan on 2nd Avenue between East 4th & East 5th Streets.
From October 2017 to February 2018, Public Art Fund presented Ai Weiwei's Good Fences Make Good Neighbors in all five boroughs of New York City. Inspired by the international migration crisis and current global geopolitical landscape, the exhibition transformed the security fence into a powerful social and artistic symbol. With over 300 artworks, the interventions grew out of the existing urban infrastructure, using the fabric of the city as its base and drawing attention to the role of the fence in dividing people. The exhibition included 200 individually numbered portraits of immigrants and refugees, from the nineteenth century to today, installed on lampposts across the city. Ai transformed these vinyl banners, traditionally used for advertising, into captivating works of art. He adapted historic photographs from Ellis Island, images of famous refugees, and his own contemporary portraits taken with his studio on their global travels to 40 refugee camps. Rather than printing them like conventional banner ads, each image was laser cut from industrial black vinyl, using the negative space to create a bold, two-sided image.
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