Anish Kapoor and Ai Weiwei are inviting Londoners to join them this Thursday as they join hands together to symbolically walk out of London in support of refugees.
The two artists will each carry a blanket to represent the need urgently faced by the world’s 60 million refugees.
Starting out at 10am from the Royal Academy of Arts – where a major Ai Weiwei exhibition opens this Friday – the pair will walk a route that includes Whitehall, St Paul’s Cathedral and Whitechapel Road, culminating in Stratford. Members of the public are invited to join the walk at any point and to bring a blanket with them as a gesture of support.
Over the coming months, they will repeat the action in numerous cities around the world.
Ai has previously been arrested and imprisoned by Chinese authorities for his human rights activism; he only recently had his passport returned after it was confiscated almost four years ago.
His visit to the UK to oversee the installation of his Royal Academy exhibition has not been without controversy – a bureaucratic misjudgement by the UK Visas and Immigration department resulted in an initial visa refusal, which was overturned following a public outcry.
The walk takes place on Thursday 17 September, leaving at 10am from the Royal Academy of Arts. A map of the full route is available here
More on a-n.co.uk:
Ai Weiwei: “They know I want to make China a better country”
Home secretary to review Ai Weiwei visa refusal
“Abominable words” will stay says Kapoor after antisemitic vandalism at Versailles
