Schematising hospitality: Ai WeiWei’s activist artwork as a form of dark travel |
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Authors: | Rodanthi Tzanelli |
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Institution: | 1. School of Sociology &2. Social Policy, University of Leeds , Leeds, UK |
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Abstract: | The article provides a holistic appraisal of activist-artist Ai WeiWei’s work. It argues that, despite its topical innovations and evolution, it continues to be informed by narratives of ‘hospitality’ as an experiential form of engagement with variations of otherness (father, migrant, tourist and refugee). Dividing Ai’s artwork into two overlapping phases of development (national and international/global), it considers the artist’s construction of a cosmopolitan identity with uses of ‘technology’ as embodied and communal property. As Ai’s work on the refugee crisis on Lesbos attests, his (dark) artistic cosmopolitan symbolisations use geo-political imaginaries of justice and hospitality in subsequent projects. |
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Keywords: | Adventure dark tourism/travel edgework global complexity hospitality migration schematisation |
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