Two Portland State students presented a performance art protest piece on Monday to raise awareness of the arrest and detainment of influential Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
The New York Times reported that Weiwei—a renowned artist, filmmaker and staunch critic of the government—was detained by Chinese officials on April 3 as he attempted to board a plane to Hong Kong. His current whereabouts and future release date remain unknown.
Graduate student Sean Green and sophomore Katie Slayden began their performance art piece at 10 a.m. in the the Smith Memorial Student Union lobby. Using bright red buckets and watering cans, the artists filled an eight-foot China-shaped template with thousands of black sunflower seeds. In the center, red spray-painted sunflower seeds spelled out the words “FREE WEIWEI.”
“It’s perfect; [performance art] is a lot more attention grabbing, and it’s very respectful of Ai Weiwei as an artist,” said Amanda Green, a PSU student who witnessed the performance.
The performance was an ode to some of Weiwei’s own works, including “Sunflower Seeds,” which is currently on display at the Tate Modern in London. This piece is composed of 100 million individually hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, created by a large group of artisans in Jingdezhen, China.
As Green and Slayden’s own installation began to take shape, more and more observers stopped to inquire about the performance. The artists remained completely silent while performing, allowing the audience members to spread information about the protest amongst themselves.
According to Green, the main purpose of the performance was to raise awareness about Weiwei’s imprisonment, and the busy corridors and mezzanine vantage points of the SMSU lobby were likely to yield the greatest audience. Green also said that he and Slayden didn’t formally ask for permission to use the Smith lobby, for fear they would be denied.
The artists worked carefully to assemble their sunflower-filled representation of China, but as soon as it was finished, Green and Slayden immediately began to disassemble it, drawing surprised murmurs from the crowd of observers.
The artists dismantled the piece by hand, scooping up all the sunflower seeds and returning them to buckets. The red seeds that were used to spell out “FREE WEIWEI”—and were symbolic of the artist himself—were separated into a glass jar.
Once the floor was completely cleared of seeds, the artists grabbed their buckets and walked out the door, signaling for the audience to follow. Green and Slayden later explained that the immediate dismantling of the piece transitioned the performance to the next location, which took place in the Autzen Gallery in Neuberger Hall.
Upon entering the gallery, an island of white rice and votive candles surrounded a second, pre-arranged outline of China in the middle of the floor. The artists placed the jar of red sunflower seeds from the beginning of the performance in the center of the outline. Then the black sunflower seeds were poured all around it, supporting the jar.
Green and Slayden began lighting the candles, then passed matches to members of the audience. The performance ended with the majority of the viewers participating in the lighting of candles in symbolic solidarity with Weiwei.
Green and Slayden spent a total of $115 on materials and just over a week planning the project. The artists chose performance art over other means of protest because, Slayden said, “It’s more in your face; it’s more active.”
Green said that performance art was fitting, given Weiwei’s artistic accomplishments.
“Doing art for an artist seemed appropriate,” he said. ?