Ai WeiWei has inspired a wave of graffiti art calling for his release across Hong Kong. A chair protest was also staged on Monday in a rally held marking Ai WeiWei’s one month detention.
Avant-garde artist and rights activist Ai Weiwei has been held for almost one month by Chinese authorities based on alleged, though unspecified, economic crimes.
One artist projected an image with the words, "Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" onto a wall at the People’s Liberation Army barracks located in the heart of Hong Kong. The art was temporary, and after the artist took pictures of it, it was taken down.
Other graffiti artists took a more permanent approach, spray-painting pro-Ai images across walls, pavements and public spaces. A police investigation is currently looking into possible criminal damages, Reuters reported.
A chair protest on Monday was inspired by one of Ai’s installations, The Fairytale. Dozens of supporters brought chairs to Hong Kong’s Victoria Park and formed the Chinese character for "prison." They carried placards railing against China’s one-party government.
"Ai Weiwei has been detained for nearly a month now and his whereabouts remain unknown," Lee Cheuk Yan, a leader of the chair protest, told The Straits Times.
Hong Kong has generally had a high degree of autonomy and democracy since changing from a British colony back to Chinese rule in 1997. Since the artistic community began posing a challenge to the Communist Party, however, Beijing has asserted its power over Hong Kong a bit more.
