Ai Weiwei
Foam presents a large solo exhibition of the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. As a political refugee who lived under constant government surveillance, the artist feels related to the growing influx of refugees attempting to enter Europe. Since his first visit to the Greek island of Lesbos in December 2015, he and his team have travelled to refugee camps all around the Mediterranean, including Syria, Turkey, Italy, Israel and France. The exhibition #Safe Passage features the artist’s photographic reportage of the refugee camps but also some images of police, cameras and disguised agents shot in his own life under surveillance. The show is set in a strongly evocative way, with millions of pictures covering entire walls, giving a powerful feeling of alienation and loneliness whilst looking at an overcrowded world of social emergencies. It’s a global reflection on the individual versus the overruling society system.