I've just realised that I've seen one of Ai Weiwei's pieces of art before ...a year ago I saw Sunflower seeds installation at Tate Modern. The hundreds of life-size sunflower seeds were made of intricately hand-crafted porcelain were evenly scattered across the floor at Tate Modern. At first, people were allowed to walk across them but due to dust, this was stopped.
The whole concept of this represents a lot of ideas portrayed by Ai Weiwei.
The amount of sunflower seeds created for this makes you think about the large population of china & that though each seed may be unique, you can't tell without looking extremely close. You don't especially don't notice as people walked over them.
Ai Weiwei used historical techniques of producing these porcelain seeds. Porcelain is a ceramic material of China as this is where it originates from. It is informally known as 'china' in some english speaking countries. This is why Ai Weiwei has used this. It also gets us thinking about the idea of 'made in china' & china's mass exports.
There is an extreme amount of detail in every little sunflower seed made. This displays the effort of production of industries in China.
There is a relationship between China & Sunflowers. Sunflowers symbolise adoration. Many times sunflowers are depicted having their heads face China's emperor. Therefore Sunflowers are important in Chinese culture.
There has been a major growth in china. Not just by the amount of people living there but also the industry and economy. The use and idea of seeds shows something which can grow either into something bad or something great! This shows the two view points of the Chinese government.
The seeds scattered across a large room means the seeds would have had to be taken from the sunflower. Seeds away from sunflowers represents the scattering of both people & their ideas.
There are so many different thoughts that Sunflower Seeds provokes. These are just a few.
