Ai Weiwei: Making Sense

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense is the artist’s very first exhibition to focus on design and architecture, and is his biggest UK show in eight years.

The exhibition features works never shown before in the UK, as well as major new pieces displayed for the very first time. Large-scale works are also installed outside of the exhibition gallery, in the museum’s free-to-enter spaces, as well as outside the building.

Known around the world for his powerful art and activism, Ai Weiwei works across many disciplines: his practice encompasses art, architecture, design, film, collecting and curating. In this exhibition, Ai uses design and the history of making as a lens through which to consider what we value.

At the heart of the exhibition are a series of major site-specific installations. Hundreds of thousands of objects are laid out on the floor of the gallery in a series of five expansive ‘fields’. These objects — from Stone Age tools to Lego bricks — have been collected together by Ai Weiwei since the 1990s, and are the result of his ongoing fascination with artefacts and traditional craftsmanship. These collection-based works have never been brought together before. Three of the fields have been created for this exhibition and are seen for the very first time. The other two have never been on show in the UK before.