Odyssey

In 2016, Ai Weiwei began producing Human Flow (2017), a documentary on the global refugee crisis. He traveled to 23 countries and 40 refugee camps, conducting over 600 interviews and recording over 1 000 hours of footage. He found the global trend of forced displacement to have a much broader context, with many different histories, regional and religious conflicts, economic pressures, and environmental crises contributing to what we understand as the refugee crisis. In the research Ai Weiwei and his team conducted, they took a long view beginning with the earliest human movements, stretching back to as early as the Old Testament. With Odyssey, Ai came up with a visual language directly inspired by illustrations found in early Greek and Egyptian carvings, pottery, and wall paintings. Within that framework, Ai integrated contemporary conflicts, with images found on social media and the Internet, as well as images of Ai’s own involvement during the filming of the documentary. The drawings that make up Odyssey relate to six themes characterizing the refugee crisis: War, Ruins, the Journey, Crossing the Sea, Refugee Camps, and Demonstrations.