Fairytale

Streaming video - 2007

In 2007 Artist Ai Weiwei took part in Documenta 12 with a participatory event called Fairytale, named after the Brothers Grimm who were born near Kassel, the German city that hosts the famed art exhibition. Ai invited 1,001 people from China, many of whom had never been abroad before, to travel to Germany, live in a dormitory of Ai’s design, and freely wander the city and the exhibition. Ai’s studio recruited the applicants from the Internet. He also sent 1,001 Ming period–style wooden chairs to Germany, which were arranged throughout the exhibition hall to create gathering spaces. FAIRYTALE opens with the project’s inception and takes us through its full enactment, recording the experiences of participants of all backgrounds to cre...ate a series of portraits woven together by a single utopian event. FAIRYTALE considers many issues, including cultural conflict between China and the West in today’s world, dynamics between individual and national identity, and the ability of an individual in China to interact with global society. more