Last year, the heartbreaking image of three-year-old Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, who drowned near a Turkish beach while trying to cross into Europe, sparked off an international debate over the refugee crisis. Now, a new photograph of Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei recreating last year's iconic image for an Indian magazine, has elicited an equally wide range of reactions.
The black-and-white photograph was taken as part of a two-day photo shoot by Indian photographer Rohit Chawla for an upcoming issue of the India Today magazine and exhibited at the India Art Fair in Delhi over the weekend. It shows Weiwei lying on an aluminium foil on a pebbled beach on the Greek island of Lesbos, in a pose similar to Kurdi's. India Today has called the photo shoot a "tribute to the tragic and everlasting image."
According to Weiwei, the idea for the photograph "came spontaneously."
"I was standing there and I could feel my body shaking with the wind -- you feel death in the wind. You are taken by some kind of emotions that you can only have when you are there. So for me to be in the same position [as Kurdi], is to suggest our condition can be so far from human concerns in today's politics," he told CNN.
To remind us of the rescue we aren't providing,@aiww poses as #drowned refugee toddler. https://t.co/ZsnOLDPWPg @hrw pic.twitter.com/6XBX1dTVar— Adriaan Hofstra © (@adhofstra) January 31, 2016
Lazy, cheap, crass: Ai Weiwei poses as drowned Syrian infant refugee in 'haunting' photo https://t.co/B0b628zjOp— David Batty (@David_Batty) February 1, 2016
While the photograph has divided journalists and Weiwei's followers, it reflects the dissident artist's ongoing projects on the refugee crisis. Since December Weiwei has been spending time on the Greek island of Lesbos, the main entry point for thousands of refugees. Over the last week, he has been sharing photographs and videos of his observations of migrants entering Lesbos on boats via his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
#Syrian child on the shores of #Turkey .. . #heartbreaking pic.twitter.com/1pKqX19xBa— Said Shoaib (@saidshouib) September 2, 2015
Weiwei has been increasingly vocal about the humanitarian aspects of the refugee crisis. Last week, he also withdrew his works from two Danish museums to protest against the country's new law that allows authorities to confiscate valuables from migrants.
"I don't see myself as a refugee because I've got my passport and can travel freely, and I'm better than refugees that have lost their lives. But in the way many of my friends are still in jail, many of their families don't know where they are and cannot have lawyers and proper records. In one sense of course, we are all refugees," Weiwei said.
Also a vine on the actual making of the @IndiaToday shoot of @aiww on the beach of Lesvos https://t.co/aGLXlPc4ja— Gayatri Jayaraman (@Gayatri__J) February 1, 2016
The magazine has also argued that rather than being a "publicity gimmick planned and pushed out" by Weiwei, the photograph was conceptualised by their team. India Today editor Gayatri Jayaraman has written that when she asked Weiwei where his studio was located, the artist reportedly pointed to the shores and said, "The sea shore is my studio; the world is my studio."