If you are familiar with the art world, this portrait may look familiar to you. It is none other than controversial artist Ai Weiwei, the designer behind the iconic 2008 Beijing Olympics Bird's Nest Stadium. One of Weiwei's most recent works, Sunflower Seeds, was an installation at Tate Modern in London, England in 2010, and included a massive collection of one hundred million hand painted porcelain “seeds.” With the help of 1,600 hundred people, Weiwei created this installation to speak out about the mass production trend of “Made in China.”
Taking inspiration from Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds, Shanghai-based artist Hong Yi set out to create a portrait of Weiwei using the medium of actual sunflower seeds. What started out as a small project inside turned into a big one outside, and the final piece required approximately 100,000 seeds!
