@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz

Ai Weiwei at the artist's studio in Beijing, February 2014.

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is internationally renowned for work that defies the distinction between art and activism. In this exhibition of new works created specifically for Alcatraz, Ai responded to the island’s layered legacy as a 19th-century military fortress, a notorious federal penitentiary, a site of Native American heritage and protest, and now one of America’s most visited national parks. Revealing new perspectives on Alcatraz, the exhibition raised questions about freedom of expression and human rights that resonated far beyond this particular place.

Ai’s sculpture, sound, and mixed-media installations occupied four locations in the former prison: the New Industries Building; a group of cells in A Block; the Hospital; and the Dining Hall. With the exception of the Dining Hall, these areas were usually restricted to the public, but all were open throughout the run of the exhibition. @Large turned Alcatraz into a space for dialogue about how we define liberty and justice, individual rights and personal responsibility. In artworks that balanced political impact with aesthetic grace, the exhibition directly and imaginatively addressed the situation of people around the world who have been deprived of their freedom for speaking out about their beliefs — people like Ai himself.

A vocal critic of his nation’s government, Ai was secretly detained by Chinese authorities for 81 days in 2011, and only regained possession of his passport on July 22, 2015. As a result, the artist was unable to visit Alcatraz during the planning of this exhibition; he developed the artwork at his studio in Beijing, with the help of the FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai embraced the ironies of creating site-specific art for a place he couldn’t see, and of celebrating free expression while working under severe constraints. Conflict and struggle have only galvanized the artist’s commitment to art as an act of conscience. With this project, he aimed to expand our understanding of “the purpose of art, which is the fight for freedom.”

Alcatraz was the site of @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz from September 27, 2014 to April 26, 2015.

Located 1.5 miles off the coast of San Francisco, Alcatraz Island encompasses a total of 22 acres in the center of San Francisco Bay. The island has served as the site of a military garrison, military prison, federal penitentiary, a Native American occupation, and is now a national park.

In 1775, Spanish explorer Lt. Juan Manuel de Ayala names the island "La Isla de los Alcatraces" (The Island of the Pelicans). With no vegetation or habitation, Alcatraz was little more than a desolate rocky islet occupied by the occasional swarm of birds.

In the early 1850s Alcatraz Island was designated as a military reservation to prevent the passage of hostile vessels through the Golden Gate towards San Francisco.

The site gradually transitioned into use as a military prison incarcerating, among others, secessionists and Southern privateers during the Civil War.

In 1895, 19 members of the Hopi tribe from Arizona were imprisoned on Alcatraz for resisting the policy of forced education of their children and land allotment programs contrary to their Native American beliefs. Later, conscientious objectors refusing to serve in World War I were also jailed on the island. In fact, Alcatraz incarcerated hundreds of non-violent offenders who were imprisoned for expressing and upholding their political convictions or religious beliefs.

From 1909 through 1911, military prisoners on Alcatraz built a new structure on top of the old Citadel foundation, and it was this building that later became famous as "The Rock."

During Prohibition and the Great Depression, the federal government developed Alcatraz as a new type of prison — a maximum-security, minimum-privilege facility specially designed for inmates so problematic that other federal prisons could not successfully detain them.

As America’s first maximum-security civilian penitentiary, daily life on Alcatraz was harsh and prisoners were given only four rights: medical attention, shelter, food and clothing; recreational activities and family visits had to be earned through hard work.

During its 29 years of operation as a federal penitentiary, more than 1,500 convicts were incarcerated here. There were a total of 14 escape attempts by 34 prisoners.

The expense of operating and maintaining such an isolated facility brought about the prison’s closure in 1963. While Alcatraz stood empty and the federal government debated its fate, a group of Native Americans claimed the island as “Indian land” in 1969 and occupied the island to protest federal policies related to American Indians. Frustrated by lack of support and personal tragedies, and confronted by U.S. Marshals, the last of the occupiers left Alcatraz in 1971.

While the occupation was impermanent, its ramifications were not: Native American pride surged and the U.S. government abandoned its attempts to eliminate the Native American reservation system.

Alcatraz opened as a national park in 1973 and currently welcomes more than 1.4 million visitors each year.

The New Industries Building, site of Ai Weiwei's With Wind, Trace, and Refraction.

“You are required to work at whatever you are told to do.”
— USP Alcatraz Regulation 21: Work

In the federal penitentiary on Alcatraz, work was a privilege. One of the rewards for good behavior was a job, and for many inmates during the last two decades of the prison’s existence, that job was in the New Industries Building. Built between 1939 and 1941, this two-story laundry and manufacturing facility was designed to replace the Model Industries Building nearby, which had been the site of several escape attempts.

The New Industries Building, site of Ai Weiwei's With Wind, Trace, and Refraction.

Former prison guard Jim Albright described the New Industries Building as “filled with the assorted sounds of clothes washers and dryers, band saws, grinders, hammers, and sewing machines. . . . The combined scents of laundry detergent, cleaning fluids, and other chemicals once filled the air.”

Workers here did laundry for military bases all over the Bay Area — initially, the entire upper floor was a laundry facility, the largest in San Francisco at the time — and manufactured clothing, gloves, shoes, brushes, and furniture for government use. During World War II, prisoners were also called upon to help the war effort: workers made tens of thousands of cargo nets for the U.S. Navy and repaired the large buoys that secured the submarine net across San Francisco Bay.

The front room of the New Industries Building's upper level, site of Ai Weiwei's With Wind.

The workshops in the New Industries Building started shutting down in October 1962, before the entire prison closed in 1963. Today, visitors to the national park can still see the views that were so tantalizing for the men who worked here, and observe the numerous birds that now use the cliffs outside New Industries as a nesting ground.

The individual kites that make up the dragon’s body carry quotations from activists who have been imprisoned or exiled, including Nelson Mandela, Edward Snowden, and Ai himself.

Ai Weiwei, With Wind, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

An @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz Art Guide discusses With Wind with exhibition visitors.

Art Guides oriented and interacted with exhibition visitors, provided information about the artist and the conceptual themes at work in @Large (such as human rights, freedom of expression, and individual responsibility) and their relevance to Alcatraz, answered questions, participated in social media, and monitored locations for security, visitor flow and art maintenance.

With With Wind, Ai also offers a poetic response to the layered nature of Alcatraz as a former penitentiary that is now an important bird habitat and a site of thriving gardens.

Ai Weiwei, With Wind, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

A member of the @Large installation team hangs part of Ai Weiwei's With Wind inside the New Industries Building on Alcatraz.

A custom-designed tension rigging system was used to suspend the kite in space, preventing potential damage to the historic surfaces of the federally-protected site.

Members of the @Large installation team hang the dragon head from Ai Weiwei's With Wind inside the New Industries Building on Alcatraz.

Alcatraz inmates making cargo nets in the rear room of the New Industries Building's top level, site of Ai Weiwei’s Trace.

Working in “the Industries” offered its own kinds of escape — from boredom and physical inactivity, from social isolation, and even from a full prison term. In exchange for his labor, an inmate could earn a shortened sentence — an average of two days’ “good time” for a month’s work — as well as a little money to send to family or save for the future. In the prison’s early days, the wage was five to 12 cents per hour.

The rear room of the New Industries Building's top level, site of Ai Weiwei’s Trace.

Former inmate Jim Quillen remembered his job in the New Industries brush shop as “the most frustrating and boring, not to mention aggravating, work I have ever done — before, during, or after my release from prison.”

The Alcatraz prison factory produced furniture, ashtrays, lamps, and brushes, as well as rubber mats and cargo nets for U.S. Navy battleships.

Ai Weiwei, Trace, 2014 (installation view, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

Trace as viewed from the upper gun gallery.

Ai Weiwei, Trace, 2014 (installation view, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

Ai Weiwei, Trace, 2014 (detail)

Interpretive kiosks provide case information on each individual featured in Trace.

Ai Weiwei, Trace, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

The family of Bahraini prisoner of conscience, Ebrahim Sharif, poses with his Trace portrait on the closing day of @Large.

Ai Weiwei, Trace, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

Kamelia Sadeghi Dadgar poses at the Trace portrait of her cousin, Iranian prisoner of conscience Faran Hesami.

Ai Weiwei, Trace, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

@Large curator Cheryl Haines and FOR-SITE Foundation Program Director Jackie von Treskow conduct a Skype tour of @Large with recently released CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou who was being held on house arrest.

Ai Weiwei, Trace, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

Boxes of LEGO bricks for use on Ai Weiwei's Trace. More than 1.2 million individual bricks were used to construct the piece.

More than 80 volunteers gave their time for more than five weeks to help construct Ai Weiwei's Trace.

Some portions of the artwork were assembled in the artist’s studio, while others were fabricated to the artist’s specifications by more than 80 volunteers in San Francisco.

Completed LEGO plates awaiting assembly in Ai Weiwei's Trace.

A member of the @Large installation team assembles part of Ai Weiwei's Trace.

Assembling a multitude of small parts into a vast and complex whole, the work may bring to mind the relationship between the individual and the collective, a central dynamic in any society and a particularly charged one in contemporary China.

Inmates working in the sewing room located on the lower level of the New Industries Building, site of Ai Weiwei’s Refraction.

Although workers had slightly more freedom to move and communicate at work than in the cellhouse, they were still under constant control: unarmed guards patrolled the floor, carrying whistles to signal to armed guards in the gun gallery overhead in case of trouble.

The official employer of workers on Alcatraz was not the penitentiary itself, but Federal Prison Industries, Incorporated, a government corporation launched in 1934 to create “factories with fences” in federal prisons. This corporation still exists today; operating under the name UNICOR, it has expanded to provide not only manual labor for government industry but also business services — such as prisoner-staffed call centers — for private companies.

The New Industries Building lower gun gallery, site of Ai Weiwei's Refraction.

The lower gun gallery allowed armed guards to monitor prisoners at work. Alcatraz inmates made everything from rubber mats to cargo netting to shoes and uniforms in this enormous and now decaying facility.

@Large visitors are limited to viewing Ai Weiwei's Refraction from this confined space.

Like With Wind on the floor above, this piece uses imagery of flight to evoke the tension between freedom — be it physical, political, or creative — and confinement.

Ai Weiwei, Refraction, 2014 (installation view, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

The sculpture’s enormous bulk (it weighs more than five tons) and constrained position on the lower floor kept it earthbound, but one might imagine its array of solar panels silently mustering energy, preparing for takeoff.

Ai Weiwei, Refraction, 2014 (installation view, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

Ai Weiwei, Refraction, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

By requiring visitors to view the work from the gun gallery, the installation implicates them in a complex structure of power and control. Following in the footsteps of prison guards, visitors are placed in a position of authority, and yet the narrowness of the spaces creates a visceral feeling of physical restriction.

Ai Weiwei, Refraction, 2014 (installation view, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

When the prison closed in 1963, the lack of human disturbance and land predators, as well as island topography and location, led to the return of the birds. Today, this National Historic Landmark is a haven for more than 5,000 nesting birds.

Sensitive bird nesting sites are even tucked within the rubble and concrete pipes left over from the era when correctional officers and their families lived on-island. A diversity of wildlife finds their niche within these man-made habitats.

Ai Weiwei, Refraction, 2014 (installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz)

Members of the @Large installation team install Ai Weiwei's Refraction in the New Industries Building on Alcatraz.

A member of the @Large installation team installs Ai Weiwei's Refraction in the New Industries Building on Alcatraz.

Main Cellhouse A Block, site of Ai Weiwei's Stay Tuned.

The massive concrete Alcatraz Cellhouse, completed in 1912, was originally designed to house military prisoners. When the prison became a federal penitentiary in 1934, the majority of the cellblocks were renovated with tool-proof steel bars, remotely operated doors, and other maximum-security technologies. A Block, however, was not remodeled; more than any other part of the cellhouse, it retains the traces of Alcatraz’s military past.

With its flat “strap iron” bars and keyed doors, A Block and the rest of the old military prison may have been less secure than the modern federal penitentiary, but the original “Disciplinary Barracks” was a no less forbidding environment. Six cells on the top tier of A Block were used for solitary confinement; outfitted with solid doors punctured by a few ventilation holes, they were precursors to the infamous isolation cells of D Block. Down below, steps led from the ground floor of A Block to the basement of the Citadel, the remnants of the original fort built in the 1850s. In the military prison period and in the early years of the federal penitentiary, parts of the basement were used for isolation; these dank, dark spaces earned the nickname “the Dungeon.”

Main Cellhouse A Block: site of Ai Weiwei's Stay Tuned.

Among the inmates who became all too familiar with the military prison’s lower depths was Philip Grosser, an anarchist and World War I conscientious objector, one of a number of men who were imprisoned on Alcatraz for refusing to serve in the military on political or religious grounds. Grosser spent 18 months on Alcatraz, including long stretches in solitary confinement, and later wrote a scathing report on prison conditions.

He vividly described his experiences in "the Dungeon" and in the vestibule doors, 12-by-23-inch cages attached to the regular cell doors. Forced to stand in one of these “coffin cages” for eight hours a day, Grosser called the device a “veritable iron straight jacket.” The vestibule doors were removed after 1920, but the hinges that are believed to have held them are still attached to some cell doors in A Block.

After Alcatraz became a federal prison, A Block was rarely used to confine inmates, except on rare occasions when prisoners needed to be completely separated from the general population; instead, the space was used for offices and storage. At least some of the federal prisoners who saw the inside of A Block came there voluntarily: cells equipped with typewriters and legal reference books gave prisoners a place to work on their legal cases or type correspondence, keeping some connection to life on the outside.

Each cell features a different recording. The diverse selection included the Tibetan singer Lolo, who has called for his people’s independence from China; the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot, opponents of Vladimir Putin’s government; and the Robben Island Singers, activists imprisoned during South Africa’s apartheid era.

The celebrated Nigerian musician Fela wrote this song following the Soweto Uprising of 1976, in which hundreds of South African students were killed. In decrying authoritarianism, the song also refers to the harassment and brutality that Fela and his family experienced at the hands of the Nigerian government. Fela was arrested on charges of currency smuggling in 1984 and served 20 months in prison.

Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation view, A Block, Alcatraz)

Ai Weiwei has described the texture of the individual voice as a particularly potent vehicle for human connection and communication.

Shamlu was a Persian poet, writer, and journalist and an important member of the Iranian intellectual opposition under the Shah. Several of his works were banned or confiscated in the 1950s, and in 1954 he was arrested and jailed for 14 months. A strong opponent of repression and censorship, he received the Freedom of Expression Award from Human Rights Watch in 1991.

Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation view, A Block, Alcatraz)

Heard inside a cell, speech and singing create a powerful contrast to the isolation and enforced silence of imprisonment.

Jara was a Chilean singer, songwriter, guitarist, and theater director. He was also a member of the Communist Party of Chile and a prominent supporter of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government. Shortly after the 1973 Chilean military coup, he was arrested, tortured, and ultimately killed. His recordings were banned for many years in Chile. “Manifiesto” was among the last songs Jara recorded.

Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation detail, A Block, Alcatraz)

In 2012 the Russian feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot performed this song at a cathedral in Moscow in protest against Orthodox Church leaders’ support for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Three members of the group, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” and sentenced to two years in prison; Samutsevich’s sentence was suspended.

Ai Weiwei, Stay Tuned, 2014 (installation view, A Block, Alcatraz)

Jeremiah Moore of Moment Audio Group and producer Starr Sutherland discuss sound tests with @Large curator Cheryl Haines during installation of Ai Weiwei's Stay Tuned inside A Block on Alcatraz.

Because of Ai's travel restrictions during the installation of @Large, 3-D schematic drawings rendered by Moment Audio Group were shared with the artist to delineate the spaces found in A Block for use in Ai's Stay Tuned.

The Alcatraz Hospital, site of Ai Weiwei's Illumination and Blossom.

“You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else that you get is a privilege.” — USP Alcatraz Regulation 5: Privileges

Medical care was one of only four basic rights granted to prisoners at the Alcatraz penitentiary. Inmates exercised their right at sick call: every day after lunch, prisoners could line up to ask to be taken to the Hospital upstairs from the Dining Hall. One former officer claimed that as many as 10 percent of inmates would appear in the sick line on a given day, either suffering from genuine illness or hoping for an escape from regular life in the cellblock.

Entrance to an Alcatraz Hospital psychiatric observation room, site of Ai Weiwei's Illumination.

Set apart from the regular ward cells are two psychiatric observation rooms, called “bug rooms” or “bug cages” by inmates. One of the most haunting spaces in the prison, this pair of tiled chambers in the Hospital was once used for the isolation and observation of mentally ill inmates.

The number of prisoners who became mentally ill during their time on Alcatraz is hard to pin down. The official estimate of Warden James A. Johnston was two percent, but former inmate Jim Quillen said it happened “a lot more than that — all the time.” Many aspects of life on Alcatraz could drive inmates over the edge: the monotony, the lack of privacy, the threat of violence, even the knowledge that San Francisco and freedom were so close but impossible to reach. However, some prisoners also tried to fake insanity, hoping for a chance to be transferred to another institution — anywhere other than Alcatraz.

The placement of the chants in the psychiatric observation rooms suggest an unexpected analogy: like subjugated peoples, those who have been classified as mentally ill have often been dismissed, deprived of rights, confined, and observed.

Under the severe circumstances of incarceration, chanting could serve as a source of emotional comfort, spiritual strength, and cultural identity.

Ai Weiwei, Illumination, 2014 (installation view, psychiatric observation room, Hospital, Alcatraz)

This Tibetan chant is a Buddhist ceremony for the goddess Palden Lhamo, protectress of Tibet; it was recorded at the Namgyal Monastery in Dharamsala, India.

Ai Weiwei, Illumination, 2014 (installation view, psychiatric observation room, Hospital, Alcatraz)

Monks playing traditional music at Namgyal Monastery in Dharamshala, India. Namgyal Monastery was founded by the 3rd Dalai Lama in the late sixteenth century and has served the Dalai Lamas since that time.

This Hopi music comes from a traditional Eagle Dance invoking the bird’s healing powers. Hopi men were among the first prisoners of conscience on Alcatraz, held for refusing to send their children to government boarding schools in the late 19th century.

Ai Weiwei, Illumination, 2014 (installation view, psychiatric observation room, Hospital, Alcatraz)

In January 1895, 19 Hopi men from Orayvi (one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements within the United States; now located on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona) were sent to Alcatraz and subsequently incarcerated for nearly ten months.

The story of the Alcatraz prisoners is one episode in an ongoing struggle between the Hopi people and the United States government. The late 19th century witnessed increased attacks on Hopi sovereignty and culture as the United States government acted to "Americanize" the Hopi people. Imprisonment became the government's principal means of intimidation and punishment.

The U.S. government wanted to "Americanize" the Hopi by indoctrinating them with Anglo-American ideals and extinguishing Hopi culture. The education of children was the centerpiece of a U.S. government policy of Manifest Destiny, and it was fiercely resisted by Hopi people.

Decades after the Hopi incarceration, a group called Indians of All Tribes, Inc., occupied Alcatraz Island from November 1969 to June 1971. This group, made up of Native Americans relocated to the Bay Area, was protesting federal laws that took away their aboriginal land and aimed to destroy Native American cultures.

The Alcatraz Occupation is recognized today as one of the most important events in contemporary Native American history. It was the first intertribal protest action to focus the nation’s attention on the situation of native peoples in the United States. The island occupation ignited a protest movement which culminated with the occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota in 1973.

Because of the attention brought to the plight of Native American communities, as a result of the occupation, federal laws were created which demonstrated new respect for aboriginal land rights and for the freedom of Native Americans to maintain their traditional cultures.

Each year, members of all tribes return to Alcatraz on Columbus Day and Thanksgiving to hold a Sunrise Ceremony for Indigenous Peoples and commemorate the longest Native American occupation in U.S. history.

Producer Starr Sutherland and Jeremiah Moore of Moment Audio Group install Ai Weiwei's Illumination inside the Alcatraz Hospital.

Jeremiah Moore of Moment Audio Group and producer Starr Sutherland conduct a sound test with @Large curator Cheryl Haines inside a psychiatric observation room in the Alcatraz Hospital, site of Ai Weiwei's Illumination.

The Alcatraz Hospital, site of Ai Weiwei's Blossom.

A fully functioning hospital existed on Alcatraz throughout the military and federal prison years. Instead of sending sick or injured inmates to San Francisco where they might have a chance to escape, Alcatraz administrators brought the doctors to the prisoners.

A Bureau of Prisons bulletin boasted: “The Alcatraz Hospital, adjacent to the main cell house, is equipped with modern X-ray and physical therapy apparatus, operating theater, laboratories, and dental unit, and contains wards and individual rooms for the treatment and convalescence of inmate patients. It has been certified by the American College of Surgeons and compares favorably with the up-to-date hospitals and clinics in the free community.”

The Hospital was staffed by a general practitioner who lived on the island, while specialists, surgeons, and psychiatrists from the San Francisco Public Health Service and the Presidio military base visited when needed.

Female nurses or assistants sometimes accompanied the surgeons — the only time women were ever allowed inside the cellhouse. A doctor who worked on Alcatraz described the inmates falling totally silent — whether out of respect or sheer astonishment — at the sight of a female anesthetist walking the length of the cellhouse to the Hospital.

Each ward cell in the Hospital could hold as many as six men, but inmates were usually kept separate for safety reasons. Among the prisoners who spent time in these cells were Al Capone, confined to the Hospital in 1938 after being diagnosed with syphilis; and Robert “Birdman” Stroud, who lived in the infirmary for 11 years. A hypochondriac as well as an extremely disruptive inmate who had incited a riot in D Block, Stroud was permanently moved to the Hospital in 1948 to keep him out of the general population.

Ai Weiwei, Blossom, 2014 (installation detail, Hospital, Alcatraz)

Like With Wind in the New Industries Building, Blossom draws on and alters natural imagery as well as traditional Chinese arts. Rather than referring to national iconography, however, the flowers here carry other associations. The work could be seen as symbolically offering comfort to the imprisoned, as one would send a bouquet to a hospitalized patient.

Ai Weiwei, Blossom, 2014 (installation detail, Hospital, Alcatraz)

Ai Weiwei, Blossom, 2014 (installation detail, Hospital, Alcatraz)

The profusion of flowers rendered in a cool and brittle material could also be an ironic reference to China’s famous Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956, a brief period of government tolerance for free expression that was immediately followed by a severe crackdown against dissent.

Ai Weiwei, Blossom, 2014 (installation detail, Hospital, Alcatraz)

Many of the installations presented in @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz draw inspiration from the island’s natural landscapes and wildlife.

As early as 1865, the military planted Victorian-style gardens adjacent to the Citadel. In the 1920s, the military initiated an island-wide beautification project, and prisoners planted hundreds of trees and shrubs and many pounds of seeds.

In 1933, when the federal Bureau of Prisons took control of Alcatraz, the warden allowed prisoners to garden, and with the advice of prominent California horticulturists, helped to direct the transformation of the island’s western slopes into a series of gardens.

In 1941, prisoner Elliott Michener began a nine-year career as an inmate gardener—he built a toolshed and a greenhouse, received permission to order seeds and bulbs, and credited this experience with providing him a “lasting interest in creativity.”

A Qing-dynasty kiln in Jingdezhen.

While Ai Weiwei’s Blossom was conceived and designed in his Beijing studio, the intricate sculptures themselves were made by highly skilled craftspeople in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen.

Porcelain-making in China is a 2000-year tradition. The medium is being championed and authentically practiced by a new generation of modern ceramicists in this ancient city.

Members of the @Large installation team unpack a section from Ai Weiwei's Blossom in the Alcatraz Hospital.

Members of the @Large installation team installing Ai Weiwei's Blossom.

3-D models of each individual fixture were rendered and shared with the artist, allowing for a virtually imperceptible and seamless fit of the delicate porcelain sculptures.

The Dining Hall, site of Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

“You may converse in normal tones with persons near you. Boisterous conduct will not be tolerated in the dining room.”
— USP Alcatraz Regulation 33: Dining Room Rules

Officers and inmates ate the same food, which was prepared by inmates under supervision. The food was considered some of the best in the prison system, and Alcatraz officials claimed that the food budget per inmate was larger here than at any other penitentiary. Inmates were allowed to serve themselves as much food as they wanted within a specified limit; keeping their appetites satisfied gave them one less reason to revolt. But even in this, there was a catch. “Take all that you wish . . . but you must eat all that you take” was the policy, and inmates could be disciplined for failing to finish their meals.

The Dining Hall, site of Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

In the early years of the Alcatraz penitentiary, a strict rule of silence was observed throughout the cellhouse. Any unnecessary conversation was forbidden, and a low murmur of “Pass the salt” to someone down the table in the Dining Hall might be the only words one prisoner exchanged with another in the course of a day. This rule was relaxed in 1937, and 20-minute meals in the Dining Hall gave inmates more chances to talk—whether for strictly social reasons or for less innocent ones, like hatching plans to escape.

Ai Weiwei, Yours Truly, 2014 (installation view, Dining Hall, Alcatraz)

The postcards are adorned with images of birds and plants from the nations where the prisoners are held.

Ai Weiwei, Yours Truly, 2014 (installation detail, Dining Hall, Alcatraz)

At Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly, a visitor selects a pre-addressed postcard to a prisoner of conscience.

An @Large visitor writes a postcard to a prisoner of conscience at Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly in the Alcatraz Dining Hall.

An @Large visitor writes a postcard to a prisoner of conscience at Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly in the Alcatraz Dining Hall.

In the spirit of free expression, visitors may write any message they wish. Yours Truly brings home ideas at the heart of the exhibition: the responsibilities that we all bear as members of a community, and the importance of communication as both a personal expression and a force for social change.

Ai Weiwei, Yours Truly, 2014 (installation detail, Dining Hall, Alcatraz)

Each week, Yours Truly postcards written by visitors to @Large were collected, counted, sorted and sent to prisoners of conscience around the world. In total, @Large visitors wrote more than 92,000 postcards to individuals currently incarcerated for the peaceful expression of their beliefs.

The Urban Wood Furnishings team, based in Round Lake, Illinois, fabricated the custom tables and cabinets for Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly according to the artist's design.

A postcard scan of an @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz visitor message to Chelsea Manning in Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

A postcard scan of an @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz visitor message to Irom Sharmila in Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

A postcard scan of an @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz visitor message to Eskinder Nega in Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

A postcard scan of an @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz visitor message to Reeyot Alemu in Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

A postcard scan of an @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz visitor message to Vladimir Kozlov in Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

A postcard scan of an @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz visitor message to Walid Yunus Ahmad in Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

A postcard scan of an @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz visitor message to Filep Karma in Ai Weiwei's Yours Truly.

The handwritten letter from Indian prisoner of conscience Irom Sharmila Chanu detailing the receipt of thousands of Yours Truly postcards written by visitors to @Large.

In total, Irom was sent more than 8,300 individual postcards—more than any other individual featured in the piece.

Here is an excerpt (text edited for clarity): “Believe that a dissident artist from China whose name is Ai Weiwei has already influenced the whole continents of the world about me and my cause in a couple of months with his genuine creative art by installing a great exhibition based on 175 prisoners of conscience from across the world, with the aim of spreading awareness of our forced imprisonment to repress of voices of truth throughout world. I read through all the post card letters, around 2500 in numbers. I was so pleased on receiving such a great number of letters at a time. And it broadened my view toward my struggle. I felt indebted to all those wellwishers from across the world. I felt the impact of their daily prayers at their respective homes for my freedom with victory."

@Large by the Numbers.

@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz has attracted a robust and deeply engaged audience and received many accolades. Here are some of the highlights:

During the exhibition’s run from September 27 through April 26, Alcatraz saw 896,657 visitors. Attendance from the region rose by 71% and visits by San Francisco residents increased 120% over the previous year, achieving important project goals of drawing local audiences and building new stewardship for the historic island.

Underserved schools and community organizations across the Bay Area received more than 7,316 tickets to @Large thanks to the @ccess Alcatraz program, organized by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the Crissy Field Center in coordination with FOR-SITE.

As of May 1, 2015, FOR-SITE, in collaboration with Amnesty International, sent over 92,000 postcards to prisoners of conscience in more than 20 countries as part of the interactive installation Yours Truly, with the highest percentages going to those incarcerated in the United States (10.3%), Vietnam (9.1%), and India (9%).

@Large was honored as an outstanding public art project by the 2015 Americans for the Arts’ Public Art Network Year in Review, nominated for “Best Presentation in an Alternative Venue” by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA-USA), and included in “Best of 2014” lists by the Huffington Post, Architectural Digest, Artsy, and Kickstarter.

The success of @Large testifies to the power of Ai Weiwei’s work to inspire dialogue about human rights and freedom of expression, and the project has continued to create extraordinary connections. On the exhibition’s closing day, FOR-SITE was honored to be joined by the family of Bahraini prisoner of conscience Ebrahim Sharif Al Sayed, and we were thrilled to offer John Kiriakou, under house arrest in Virginia at that time, a virtual tour of @Large via Skype. FOR-SITE is truly humbled by the strength that these individuals and so many others have shown in fighting for the peaceful expression of their beliefs.

On a final note, FOR-SITE is delighted to relay that our collaborators at Amnesty International recognized Ai Weiwei with the Ambassador of Conscience Award, the organization’s top honor, recognizing those who have shown exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights. Congratulations to Ai Weiwei!