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Ai interacting with refugees during the filming process of "Human Flow". One message Ai conveys through the film is the importance of showing respect and to the people who suffer. According to Ai Weiwei, everyone in this world is related, so the responsibility to care for others obligatory for everyone.

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Ai Weiwei at two years old with his father, Ai Quing. Ai Quing was a poet who was punished to exile for openly criticizing the Chinese Government. The photo below was taken in 1959, one year into the Ai's exile in Southern Mongolia.

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After posting articles that blamed the deaths of the Sichuan Earthquake on government negligence, Ai Weiwei was arrested in 2011. The picture below is a selfie Ai took in an elevator while he was taken into custody by Chengdu police.

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History of Communism in China and Ai Weiwei's inspiration to become an activist

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Visitors interacting with Ai's "Sunflower Seeds" exhibit at the Tate Modern Museum in London. The production of the 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds was started two and half years in advance and required a team of 1,600 people.

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August 28, 1957- Ai WeiWei is born

1960 - Ai family is exiled to the Gobi Desert

1976 - Mao Zedong dies, End of cultural evolution

1978- 1980 -  Attends Beijing Film Academy

1981 - Comes to New York

1993 - Ai Weiwei returns to China

December 24, 2003- Construction begins for the Beijing National stadium

May 12, 2008 - Sichuan Earthquake

August 8, 2008- Opening ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympics

December 2008 - Ai calls for volunteers to gather names of the children who died in the Sichuan Earthquake

April 2009- Ai posts the names of the victims who died in the Sichuan Earthquake

June 1, 2009- Ai’s blog is taken down by the Chinese government

August 12, 2009- Chengdu Police break into Ai Weiwei’s hotel room and assault him

October 12, 2010- “Sunflower Seeds” exhibit opens in Tate Modern, London

April 3, 2011- Ai Weiwei is arrested and held as a prisoner in Beijing

June 22, 2011 - Ai Weiwei is released from prison and returns home

2015- Ai is released from house arrest and goes on trip to Greece; Begins filming Human Flow

September 1, 2017- Release date of Human Flow

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In 2015, Ai recreated the photo of Alan Kurdi, a drowned refugee boy who was found on the shore of Turkey. As a response to criticism Ai explained that he wanted to be in the same condition of the boy - to touch his face on the sand and to hear the ocean. By staging the photo, Ai represented not one boy, but thousands of refugees who were perishing in the crisis.

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As part of his public art project in New York, Ai installed what he calls a "Gilded Cage". The cage's bars  and turnstiles are meant to demonstrate the physical restraint put on refugees and immigrants. Ai hopes his project will make New Yorkers more attentive to the refugee crisis.

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Ai Snaps a Picture After his Surgery in 2009

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Ai Snaps a Picture After his Surgery in 2009

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Ai Weiwei posing with a bag of his blood after suffering police brutality in 2009. He was traveling to testify in support of Tan Zouren, an earthquake activist, when Chengdu police broke into his hotel room and assaulted him. Ai suffered from a brain hemorrhage that nearly took his life.

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Missing Children From the Sichuan Earthquake

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Missing Children From the Sichuan Earthquake

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Photographs of missing children after the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. Due to the chaotic state of the region, death tolls were hard to estimate because children’s bodies were lost under the rubble. In the background are scattered backpacks which Ai Weiwei used as inspiration for his 2009 art piece Remembering.

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Ai Weiwei Bibliography - Google Docs.pdf

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Ai Weiwei’s artwork, Remembering, was made using 9,000 children’s backpacks. The Chinese characters spell a sentence written by a victim’s mothers, “She lived happily on this Earth for seven years.” The piece was displayed at the Haus der Kunst museum in Munich, Germany.

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The Beijing National Stadium, or commonly referred to as "The Bird's Nest", was built in 2008 for the Olympics. The stadium was designed by Ai Weiwei and architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron. Although Ai Weiwei designed the stadium, he did not attend it's opening ceremony out of spite for the Chinese Government.