Ai Weiwei Turns His Detention Into a 24-Hour Performance in Manchester
Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is bringing one of the most closely watched episodes of his life back into public view — not as a retrospective gesture, but as a live, durational performance. On July 3, the Chinese artist will begin Sewing a Button at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, spending 24 hours inside a replica of the 25.92-square-meter cell where he was held in 2011.
The work, presented by Factory International, marks Ai’s first performance centered on his detention in real time. The cell was recreated by the architecture firm Hawkins\Brown, and inside it Ai will sleep, eat, exercise, write, wash, and undergo interrogation on personal, political, and philosophical questions. The questioning will be carried out by British host Nihal Arthanayake, Irish writer Emma Dabiri, British author Lemn Sissay, and Singaporean journalist Zing Tsjeng.
Nine additional actors will portray military guards and doctors, extending the performance’s atmosphere of surveillance and institutional control. Manchester and Berlin-based electronic duo Space Afrika will provide the soundscape and conduct a live mixing session during the event, which will also be the first time Aviva Studios remains open overnight.
Ai’s 2011 detention lasted 81 days and followed years of escalating conflict with Chinese authorities, beginning with his family’s exile in 1957. Although he was charged with tax evasion, many observers saw the case as inseparable from his public criticism of the Chinese government, including works such as “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn” and his investigation into the children killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Ai has already addressed the episode in works including the six-part diorama “S.A.C.R.E.D.” and the song “Dumbass,” but Sewing a Button is the first time he has returned to the material in person, in real time.
Tickets are priced at £28.50 for two hours and £69.50 for the full 24-hour performance. For audiences beyond Manchester, the work will stream live via Factory International’s website and appear in screenings at the Australian Center for the Moving Image in Melbourne, the private ARTHAUS center in Buenos Aires, and London’s Piccadilly Circus through Josef O’Connor’s digital platform CIRCA. In a moment when questions of detention, state power, and public witness remain urgently present, Ai is turning biography into a shared civic event.
