Ai Weiwei Installs Wall Of Life Jackets Worn By Refugees In Quebec City
In a poignant reminder of war through the ages, Ai Weiwei has lined a 17th-century military stone fortification in Quebec City with 2,000 life jackets worn by Syrian refugees.
The Royal Battery was built by French soldiers in 1691 as a waterfront defense structure against British attack. Three centuries later, it is being utilized again as a symbol of North America’s historical and evolving ties with migration and colonialism, Dezeen reports.
The swim vests were picked up from the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos as Syrian migrants traversed the Mediterranean Sea for safety.
This is the first time the installation, entitled Life Jackets, is being presented in North America. The colorful display joins 15 other works dotted around Quebec City for the annual Passages Insolites art festival, scheduled to run through October 10, 2022.
Life Jackets also reflects the life-and-death boundaries, both physical and symbolic, that prevent refugees from fleeing the violence of war. Some vests can be seen floating around the wall, a deliberate feature to create movement.
To construct the work, the Chinese artist and his team of about 15 people applied scaffolding to climb up the moat that surrounds the structure, before attaching the swim vests to a steel mesh. It took 10 consecutive days for the team to complete the installation.
In its first form in Vienna, the Life Jackets wall only featured half the number of swim vests currently being displayed in Quebec City—a sobering metaphor of how the migration crisis has only aggravated. The concept has also traveled to Berlin and Copenhagen.
View this post on Instagram
[via Dezeen and Floornature, images via various sources]
