Ai Weiwei born in 1957, is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist. Growing up his father was exiled and the family were forced to move to rural areas of China. They returned to Beijing in 1976 at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Ai attended the Beijing Film Academy before moving to New York and studying at Parsons School of Design.

An internationally renowned artist, Ai uses his work to examine today's world, and to express and reflect on his own political views. He makes bold and provocative statements through a variety of media including sculptural installations, architectural projects, photographs, and videos.

Among numerous awards and honors, he won the Lifetime Achievement award from the Chinese Contemporary Art Awards in 2008 and was made Honorary Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2011. His human rights work has been recognized through the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent in 2012 and Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award in 2015. His largest exhibition to date “RAIZ” is also the highest-ranking show by a single artist in The Art Newspaper visitor figures survey for 2019.

Ai currently lives and works in Portugal, though he maintains a base in Cambridge and a studio in Berlin.