Al Wei Wei

In the Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern, Al Wei Wei has an installation consisting of over 100 million sunflower seeds laying across a wide expanse of the floor. Initially, I was captured by the immense scale. The small bits making up this larger form created this strange illusion in which the boundary between fluid and solid was blurred. I simultaneously began to feel frozen into the ground and the sense of physicality evaporates. The tension between the industrial space and the traditional hand-craft was intense.
 I looked at the wall and it said each seed was an accurately sized ceramic bit, hand-painted. 
Pounding like waves, I could only think the question, why?

After watching the video, reading the wall, and discussing as a class, my experience was even more enriched. I learned that he used the sunflower seed as a symbol of human compassion. It was a snack commonly shared during the Cultural Revolution when many restrictions were made and rights were being taken away. He said "the Chairman Mao is the Sun, all the people around him are the sunflowers. It was the people who supported the Revolution." Its so moving to me because this piece is about the vastness of the individual, vastness of the human race, and the vastness of the possibilities of our actions.


This work made me feel alive.