Ai Weiwei poses as drowned Syrian child Alan Kurdi in photograph

Creator(s)

Wei-Wei AI 艾未未

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Date

2016

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Article

Materials

Photographs

Description

One of the most heartbreaking photos in public memory of 2015 is the image of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old toddler who drowned on a Turkish beach while attempting to flee Syria with his family. Ai Weiwei, cooperating with Rohit Chawla for India Today, posed to recreate the photo in order to call for attention. Following this, Ai Weiwei became interested in the global refugee problem. Later, he covered the pillars of Konzerthaus Berlin with 14,000 refugees’ life jackets. Criticism arose, with some arguing that it would have been more useful to give these jackets to refugees, while others claimed that the work was more about calling attention to himself rather than to refugees.