At least the Great Wall worked out...

I stumbled upon this exibit the other day...and it left an impression on me. ...That impression was short lived. Or rather, it has changed. My awe, turned into Awww.


For any of you that have ever taken on a project, put your heart and soul into it, only to watch it fail... This story is for you.

Lets say, you are a conceptual artist named Ai Weiwei... and lets pretend for a minute, that you decide you want to make a magnificent art piece.... You want it spectacular, and durable enough to walk on. So you set out to do just that.

The idea:
To carpet a HUGE room, with sunflower seeds. It would be like walking in gravel, the sound, the feel under your shoes... But, it would be sunflower seeds! It would be amazing!

The problem:
Sunflower seeds will crush underfoot, leaving cracked shells and mess everywhere.

The solution:
Employ an entire town, whose only activity has been making and selling porcelain for over 1000 years. Have them cast 100 Million (100,000,000) Sunflower seeds out of porcelain. Then painstakingly hand paint each one. How you might ask?!

"Harnessing traditional craft skills, each seed was moulded, fired, and painted with three or four individual brush strokes, often by women taking the objects home to work on them. 1,600 people were involved in the process."




This "Process" took 2 years to complete. The result was unveiled last week in the main hall of Tate Modern. Everything came out perfectly, and it was quite a feat. Here are some pictures of the exhibit. You should read on before booking your trip to China to walk accross this bed of seeds though.... It will be gone in the next couple of days...



The museum is frantically cleaning up this mess... Apparently, walking on ceramic seeds causes them to give off "noxious ceramic dust".


Great idea...Bad execution. At least the poor Chinese workers that build the Great Wall can rest in peace knowing the wall is standing strong. And until it offends an extra terrestrial, for blocking their view of the dirt... I'm sure we'll get to enjoy that painstakingly glorious piece of Chinese art for many years to come.