Ai Weiwei - Sewing a Button 24-Hour Performance

Ai Weiwei re-enacts his secret detention in Sewing a Button – an unflinching 24-hour live performance.

Fifteen years ago, Ai Weiwei was secretly detained without any formal charges by Public Security in China. For 81 days, he lived in a single cell, eating his meals, washing and exercising between interrogations. Now Weiwei presents Sewing a Button – a 24-hour live performance work re-enacting this brutal, life-changing experience.

Sewing a Button condenses Weiwei’s detention into 24 hours, inviting audiences through day and night to bear witness to his experience. In a recreation of his cell, Weiwei sleeps, eats, writes and washes – sometimes, he is interrogated.

As a companion piece to landmark exhibition Button Up!, Sewing a Button reflects the fearless interplay between the personal and political in Weiwei’s work. Button Up! confronts 200 years of power, trade, war, culture and Empire that have shaped relations between Britain and China; Sewing a Button distils these forces into a frighteningly intimate human story.

Marking roughly 15 years since Ai Weiwei’s release, the piece takes its title from a poignant moment from his detention: after two months of living without a button to hold his trousers up, a guard finally brought needle and thread to mend them.

The internationally renowned artist, activist and champion of free expression has revisited this period before  in works such as S.A.C.R.E.D (2013), 81 (2013) and Dumbass (2013) – but Sewing a Button marks the first time his detention will be re-enacted live.

Unsettling and provocative, Sewing a Button exposes the fragility of personal freedoms in today’s uncertain world.

This is a 24-hour durational performance running from 5pm on 3 July to 5pm on 4 July. Tickets are split into two-hour slots with a full 24-hour option:

Interrogation Hours (5–7pm, 9–11am, 1–3pm and 3–5pm) - Guards observe Ai Weiwei during his daily tasks and a special security team interrogate him

Reflection Hours (7–9pm, 9–11pm, 7–9am and 11am – 1pm) - Ai Weiwei prepares for sleep and spends time reflecting after intense periods of interrogation

Dreaming Hours (11pm – 1am, 1–3am, 3–5am and 5–7am) - Ai Weiwei sleeps while guards observe him at all times. Like the guards, you watch him dream and sleep. This slot also includes access to the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Button Up!

24 Hours (3 July, 5pm – 4 July, 5pm) – Watch the full 24-hour experience. You may leave and re-enter the space. This slot also includes access to the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Button Up!

Ai Weiwei: Sewing a Button will also be livestreamed for audiences who wish to watch remotely, with more details released nearer the performance.