FDA-Sc.229:1-2024
Parts
Object number
FDA-Sc.229:1-2024
Object type
Identification
Title
Sunflower Seed
Title Type
assigned by cataloguer
Description
Life-size painted ceramic sculpture of a seed
Comments
'When Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (b.1957) was just one year old, his father, poet Ai Qing (1910–1996), was exiled from Beijing and sent to a labour camp in Xinjiang. The family returned to Beijing in 1975 and Weiwei enrolled at the Film Academy. He became a member of a subversive political artists’ group before moving to the US in 1981, settling in New York. Weiwei returned to Beijing in 1993, after his father became ill, but was arrested in 2011 and jailed for 81 days. After Chinese authorities returned his passport in 2015, he emigrated to Europe.
For his Tate Modern show in 2010, Weiwei employed 1,600 people to make handmade, painted porcelain sunflower seeds. Each seed was individually sculpted and hand-painted by artisans working independently or in small-scale workshops, in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. In 2010, 100 million seeds were installed in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, forming a deep carpet, through which visitors were invited to walk. Individually, each seed was a delicately crafted sculpture. En masse, they were like a fine gravel, generating sound as visitors marched through them, contemplating the mind-blowing scale of their manufacture. Through these apparently humble seeds, Weiwei’s installation reflected on the Chinese traditions of handmade ceramics versus mass production and spoke of present-day geopolitics and the place of cultural and economic exchanges with China. Just two individual seeds, mounted in frames, are included in the Kim collection; tiny mementoes from Weiwei’s sea of seeds.'
[Source: Martin, Philippa, ‘The Kim Collection of East Asian Art’, Eton College Collections Journal, 2025, p.17]
This hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seed may have been included in 'Kui Hua Zi' (Sunflower Seeds), Weiwei's art installation that was first exhibited at Tate Modern in London in 2011 and featured one hundred million similar seeds.
For his Tate Modern show in 2010, Weiwei employed 1,600 people to make handmade, painted porcelain sunflower seeds. Each seed was individually sculpted and hand-painted by artisans working independently or in small-scale workshops, in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. In 2010, 100 million seeds were installed in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, forming a deep carpet, through which visitors were invited to walk. Individually, each seed was a delicately crafted sculpture. En masse, they were like a fine gravel, generating sound as visitors marched through them, contemplating the mind-blowing scale of their manufacture. Through these apparently humble seeds, Weiwei’s installation reflected on the Chinese traditions of handmade ceramics versus mass production and spoke of present-day geopolitics and the place of cultural and economic exchanges with China. Just two individual seeds, mounted in frames, are included in the Kim collection; tiny mementoes from Weiwei’s sea of seeds.'
[Source: Martin, Philippa, ‘The Kim Collection of East Asian Art’, Eton College Collections Journal, 2025, p.17]
This hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seed may have been included in 'Kui Hua Zi' (Sunflower Seeds), Weiwei's art installation that was first exhibited at Tate Modern in London in 2011 and featured one hundred million similar seeds.
Description
Dimensions
height (frame): 180mm
width (frame): 188mm
depth (frame): 40mm
width (frame): 188mm
depth (frame): 40mm
Materials & techniques note
Hand painting on ceramic
Production
Person
Weiwei, Ai, 1957 - ? (Artist)
Date
2011
History and association
Associated object
FDA-Sc.229:2-2024 (associated object)
Object history note
Provenance: Presented to Eton College by the family of Seojoon Justin Kim (PEPW, 2019-2024) to mark Eton’s inaugural East and South East Asian Heritage Month (2023) - organised by Justin and the Heritage Month Planning Committee, and the exhibition ‘The Wind from the East’ (2024)
Exhibited: ‘The Wind from the East’, Tower Gallery, Eton College, 1 to 26 February 2024 (curated by Jinjoo Josephine Lee FRSA FRAS, mother of Seojoon Justin Kim)
Exhibited: ‘The Wind from the East’, Tower Gallery, Eton College, 1 to 26 February 2024 (curated by Jinjoo Josephine Lee FRSA FRAS, mother of Seojoon Justin Kim)
