I read this story on The Guardian and thought it would be great to mention simply because of its irony. Here is an installation thought out by an artist, Ai Weiwei, and carried through by a good number of Chinese people. The artwork is uniquely Chinese due to its process which was by about 1,600 people in a small city of Jingdezhen where they were contracted to manufacture 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds. The intention was to fill a room 1/3 in size and the public was suppose to walk, run, and hold them in hand to as they run through fingers and toes. The problem is now they pose a health risk because the dust the porcelain produces is toxic to lungs.The reason I site this particular work of art is because of its correlation to China today. I do not know whether it was the artist intention but it does speak to China being this manufacturing giant which has little thought to what repercussions such accomplishments have. I sight the toxic drywalls, food, and toys that have been revealed over the last couple of years not to mention all the pollution it produces, not that this country is clean of such pollution but I digress.
Now I do not know if it was the artist intention for this problem to occur with the work as it being its true concept. Of course, if it was he would not say such a thing in public due to that fact that the Chinese government would not like such an idea to be expressed. But despite that the work has not for fill its original intention I do like my own interpretation of this artwork, even more that the artist did not realize the repercussions to such an accomplishment. For me the work speaks more to the issues China is having today on the world’s stage due to its massive economic growth.
