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Ai Weiwei

1957 – 20??

alive

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and human rights activist whose work has placed him among the world's most prominent dissidents under the Chinese Communist Party. Following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake he led a citizens' investigation that documented the names of more than 5,000 schoolchildren killed in shoddily built classrooms—work that resulted in police beatings, surveillance, and his 81-day secret detention in 2011. Now living in exile, he has continued to produce monumental installations and films addressing displacement, censorship, and state violence at major institutions worldwide.