Ai Weiwei Is Crowdfunding His Latest Security and Immigration-Focused New York Installation

Overview

He has filled the National Gallery of Victoria with silver bikes, thrown paint over his pals, had quite the public fight with Lego and set up a studio in Lesbos to draw attention to the refugee crisis. And, before he heads to Australia again for the 2018 Sydney Biennale, Ai Weiwei is continuing to contemplate and challenge the way that immigration and security are handled in his latest New York installation. It'll be his largest and most ambitious public exhibition to date, and he's asking for help to make it happen.

Due to be unveiled in October, Ai Weiwei's next project is called Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, as presented by the city's Public Art Fund. To assist in the massive effort — which will feature site-specific pieces, plus 2D and 3D artwork, spanning more than 300 outdoor sites in all five boroughs — the Chinese artist has launched a Kickstarter campaign. At the time of writing, it has passed the halfway mark towards his US$80,000 goal.

Given the exhibition's title, as well as Ai Weiwei's ongoing political activism, it's far from surprising that Good Fences Make Good Neighbors addresses the plight of migrants and refugees, immigration and border control policies, and the current global rise in nationalism. Drawing upon his own experience in detention, as well as his visits to refugee camps around the world, the project will adapt security fencing in a number of different ways, and in unexpected places, in order to make a statement about division and separation.

New Yorkers can expect pieces at street level, on rooftops, between buildings, on lampposts, attached to frame bus shelters and elsewhere in the urban landscape, as well as site-specific installations in the likes of Central Park and Washington Square Park. With the project running through until February 2018, the artworks are designed to act "as powerful metaphors in a city that has long served as a gateway to the United States for millions of immigrants," according to the Public Art Fund website.

For those unable to see the end result in person, it's not the only thing the always-busy Ai Weiwei has been cooking up of late. Human Flow, his new documentary about the global refugee crisis, has just premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It'll have its Aussie debut at the Adelaide Film Festival in October, before reaching cinemas around the country on December 7.

Images: Ai Weiwei studio via Kickstarter.