Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei made a secret film called “Coronation” in Wuhan, the central Chinese city that became the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, during its strict lockdown.
The internationally renowned artist, whose work has called for attention to human rights violations and government corruption in China, said he had filmed a camera crew on the ground for the duration of the quarantine during the city where health experts say COVID-19 first emerged last year.
“China has adopted the status of superpower on the global stage, but it remains poorly understood by other peoples,” reads a statement on the artist’s official website. “Through the lens of the pandemic, ‘Coronation’ clearly outlines the Chinese machine for crisis management and social control – through surveillance, ideological brainwashing and brutal determination to control every aspect of society.”
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For more than two months, Wuhan’s 11 million residents have endured a blockade when the coronavirus spread.
Wuhan was the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China and saw the most dead. The city and most of the surrounding province were closed from late January to early April. People could not leave or enter the city and were mostly confined to their homes.
The spread of the disease has stopped in China but well, although isolated outbreaks appear sporadically.
Ai directed the film remotely from Europe.
The film’s promotion statement goes on to say: “The film shows the changes that have taken place in a city and in individual spaces under the influence of the virus; it illustrates the value of individual life in the political environment, and reflects on the difficulties we face as individuals and countries in the context of globalization. Ultimately, the result is a society without trust, transparency and respect for humanity. Despite the impressive scale and speed of the Wuhan lockdown, we face a more existential question: can civilization survive without humanity? Can peoples trust each other without transparency or trust? ”
Ai told The Associated Press earlier this summer that his artist friends in Wuhan sent him footage, even from a hospital, and gave him multiple angles of vulnerable and fleeting moments of the city during his unknown closure.
“I think China has treated it better (then SARS) because they are much more experienced,” Ai said in May. But he said there was still a lack of transparency.
“They (Chinese government) have been (completely) covering up the whole pandemic as a secret for many weeks,” Ai said. “In a sense, they will never change.”
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Ai was arrested at the Beijing airport in April 2011 and held for 81 days without explanation.
“I was missing,” he said, referring to his more than two-month prison sentence.
After its release, China said Ai had announced tax evasion and a $ 2.4 million fine. He has since left China on his Chinese passport and has a legal right to return to his homeland. His last visit to his birthplace was a few months after he first left in July 2015, his studio said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
