Sunflower seeds in the London gallery Tate Modern by Ai Wei Wei

Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei buried the turbine hall of London's Tate Modern with hand-painted sunflower seeds made of porcelain. It will take visitors a while to realize that these are one hundred million replicas of real seeds at 'life size'. The enormous scale of the entire concept will be hard for the European mind to accept. The installation was meant to encourage visitors to walk among the seeds, sift them through their fingers, or lie down among them. Unfortunately, just a few days after the exhibition opened, tape was put up and a platform was built, allowing visitors only to view from a distance, which Tate justified by possible risks of inhaling dust stirred up by many interested parties walking among the ceramic seeds. Since then, the museum, alongside Ai Wei Wei, has been searching for a solution to allow visitors to once again experience firsthand the energy emanating from the one hundred million hand-painted seeds that were made by 1600 artists over nearly two years.
Sunflower seeds are a common Chinese snack that people eat on the streets. However, for Ai Wei Wei, they also carry a personal association linked to the Cultural Revolution—when individuals were stripped of personal freedom, and state propaganda portrayed leader Mao as the sun to which the people looked like sunflowers. Ai Wei Wei compares the sunflower seed to a symbol of human compassion, providing a place for pleasure, friendship, and kindness in times of extreme poverty, oppression, and uncertainty. His work also reflects the current mass production in China, as well as the traditional craftsmanship that underpins the rapid cultural and economic transformation of China in recent years.

The history of The Unilever Series dates back to 2000 when Louise Bourgeois's project I Do, I Undo, I Redo was created. Since then, every year, another significant artist has exhibited in the turbine hall, including Juan Muñoz (Double Bind 2001), Anish Kapoor (Marsyas 2002), Olafur Eliasson (Weather Project 2003), Bruce Nauman (Raw Materials 2004), Rachel Whiteread (Embankment 2005), Carsten Höller (Test Site 2006), Doris Salcedo (Shibboleth 2007), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (TH.2058 2008) and Miroslaw Balka How It Is 2009). This year's project 'Sunflower Seeds', curated by Juliet Bingham, can be viewed for free in the turbine hall of the Tate Modern gallery until May 2, 2011.

The closure of the London exhibition is not the most pressing issue that Ai Wei Wei currently has to deal with. Due to the planned demolition of his studio, Ai Wei Wei is in a dispute with the Chinese government. The entrance to his home is guarded by the police, and the artist cannot step outside his house arrest. We hope that the artist can resolve both cases soon, and we can look forward to his future projects and soon experience what it feels like to be an elephant in a china shop in London.
And a curiosity to end—one of the hundreds of millions of porcelain seeds appeared in an auction on British eBay, and after a seven-day bidding period, it sold for a bid of £19.99 (600 crowns).