The artist is going to open an installation featuring thousands of shoes and clothes abandoned by refugees looking for a safe place to live.
Ai Weiwei’s Laundromat. Source: Ai Weiwei Studio/Artnet.
Ai Weiwei continues his international campaign of solidarity with refugees. He is going to show the first exhibition in Qatar, with the work Laundromat (2016) being the key installation.
Laundromat is an installation featuring 2,046 items of clothes and shoes collected in an abandoned refugee camp in Idomeni in northern Greece, close to the Macedonian border. The items will be accompanied by photographs and notes by the artist. His film Idomeni about the everyday life of people who had to flee their home countries will be shown as part of the exhibition. The camp was later evacuated, but a large number of personal belongings of refugees were left on the site.
“The harsh reality can act as evidence and make us reflect on these conditions. This is a situation many people refuse to see, or try to distort or ignore. Many wilfully believe this isn’t taking place. When you see so many children out of school—263 million children worldwide—you can’t easily predict what our future holds,” Artnet quotes Ai Weiwei as saying.
The show is hosted by the Garage Gallery in the Fire Station in Doha, Qatar. The exhibition will remain on display from March 15 to June 1. The date and time were not chosen accidentally – neighbouring countries accuse Qatar of financing terrorists and Saudi Arabia imposed a blockade on the country. Qatar denies all accusations.
At the same time, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees praised Qatar for providing financial aid to refugees in the Middle East and North Africa. Qatar has spent a total of $26 million on refugees but has not ratified the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention. Refugees, including political refugees, don’t have basic rights in the country.
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