Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly: Art, Human Rights, and the Power of Writing a Letter

Description

In 2014, renowned artist Ai Weiwei created @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, and engaged nearly 900,000 visitors in a conversation about human rights and freedom of expression. One installation in the exhibition was Yours Truly, which invited visitors to write postcards to prisoners of conscience around the world. In total, 92,829 messages of hope, humour, and solidarity were written and sent. This book delves into those postcards' lasting impact. Five former prisoners and their loved ones reflect on the experience of receiving hundreds of postcards while imprisoned. A statement by Ai Weiwei, plus essays by the exhibition curators and rights advocate Jasmine Heiss, contextualise this extraordinary project. Photographs from the exhibition show visitors and the postcards they wrote. The book also includes a guide to defending human rights and four pre-addressed, tear-out postcards, inviting readers to get involved and send personal messages to current prisoners of conscience.

Ai Weiwei is among the world's most celebrated contemporary artists and an outspoken critic of injustice, both in China and abroad. His sculptures, photographs, installations, and public artworks often repurpose recognisable forms and materials from ancient Chinese ceramics to life vests worn by Syrian refugees-to address today's most pressing contemporary social concerns. An ardent human rights activist, Ai Weiwei was arrested by Chinese authorities on April 3, 2011, and held incommunicado for eighty-one days. For over four years following his release, he was prohibited from traveling abroad and subjected to ongoing government surveillance. Having relocated to Berlin, Ai Weiwei continues to extend his practice across multiple disciplines, using exhibitions and social media to communicate with a global public. His latest project, HUMAN FLOW, is a documentary film addressing the plight of refugees worldwide. Cheryl Haines is principal of Haines Gallery and founding executive director of the FOR-SITE Foundation, both organisations located in San Francisco. She was the curator of @LARGE: AI WEIWEI ON ALCATRAZ. For over thirty years, Haines has developed exhibitions and site-specific public programs that have exposed new audiences to contemporary art and advanced the discourse on art about place. Haines' dynamic curatorial stance presents challenging and provocative exhibitions by artists who explore cultural and environmental issues through a wide range of media as well as public, site-specific commissions on a national scale. Jasmine Heiss has worked on criminal-justice issues, including solitary confinement, mass incarceration, and police accountability, at the local, national, and global level. As the senior campaigner for the Individuals at Risk Program for Amnesty International USA, she helped to achieve victories, including the passage of the U.S.'s first reparations package for police torture survivors. She also helped secure the release of two of the longest-held prisoners in solitary confinement, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3. A frequent commentator and writer, Heiss has been cited in publications, including the Associated Press, CNN, the New York Times, and NPR. Heiss now serves as the director of coalitions and outreach at the Coalition for Public Safety. David Spalding is an internationally recognized writer, curator, and editor based in San Francisco, where he serves as executive director of Haines Gallery and consulting editor for the FOR-SITE Foundation. Over the past decade, he has published more than one hundred texts on contemporary art, contributing regularly to monographs and periodicals such as Artforum and Frieze. His most recent books are @LARGE: AI WEIWEI ON ALCATRAZ, The King of Kowloon: The Art of Tsang Tsou-choi, and Doublethink: Kata Legrady and Wang Luyan. Previously, Spalding was curator at the Ullens Center forContemporary Art in Beijing.

"The publication provides insightful and emotive essays by the artist and by Amnesty International USA, whilst revealing the experiences of five prisoners through their interviews, letters and biographies." -- Aesthetica "A book that forms part of an exhibition by artist and activist Ai Weiwei, Yours Truly is made up of postcards that visitors to his exhibition wrote to "prisoners of conscience" around the world. The result is a moving and interesting collection of letters and photos that will have you picking it up over and over again." -- Esquire