We’re always up for a quirky performance in Manchester, and for us, the stranger the better. Now, a unique 24-hour performance piece by artist and activist Ai Weiwei is set to be presented at Aviva Studios, home of Factory International, from 3 to 4 July.
Sewing a Button will give audiences an unflinching look at Ai Weiwei’s secret detention by Public Security in China in 2011 and is the first time the artist has re-enacted his experience. The performance coincides with Ai Weiwei: Button Up! the largest site-specific exhibition by the artist, on show at Aviva Studios from 2 July -6 September 2026. For the first time at Aviva Studios, audiences will be able to see the exhibition across 24 hours coinciding with the performance.
What to expect at Sewing a Button
Sewing a Button marks the 15th anniversary of Ai Weiwei’s secret detention by Public Security for 81 days in 2011. A recreation of the cell in which the artist was detained will sit in the Hall at Aviva Studios, measuring 7.2m by 3.6m.
Starting at 5pm on 3 July, audiences are invited to bear witness to the artist’s experience across a single night and day, bookable in two-hour slots. Audience members will be able to watch Ai Weiwei sleep, eat, exercise, write, wash and be interrogated.
They will also be able to observe Weiwei, like the guards could, through footage from three CCTV cameras set up in the Hall. Elements of the footage will be shown in screens around Aviva Studios, as well as broadcast online to reach audiences around the world.
Ai Weiwei: Button Up! exhibition
Ai Weiwei: Button Up! is an exhibition that is monumental in scale and ambition. It explores the legacies of British imperialism, Chinese and British relations and the rise of globalisation.
The exhibition will feature two major new commissions created especially for the vast space of the Warehouse: Eight-Nation Alliance Flags is a collection of flags which were made in Ai Weiwei’s studio in China, each comprising of half a million buttons; and a new iteration of History of Bombs, a mural made from over a million toy bricks which will be the largest toy brick artwork by Ai Weiwei.
The new commissions will sit alongside large-scale works by the artist which are going on show in the UK for the first time: Law of the Journey (2017), a 47m long inflatable migrant boat containing hundreds of human figures and the artist’s largest artwork to date; Wang Family Ancestral Hall (2015), a Ming dynasty ancestral temple reassembled from 1,500 individual wooden pieces; and La Commedia Umana (2017-21), a black Murano glass chandelier made up of over 2,000 pieces and weighing nearly three tonnes.
Also on show is Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2010), a re-envisioning of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. The exhibition offers a unique chance for audiences to experience Ai Weiwei’s large-scale artworks together in one space.
Summer at Aviva Studios
Throughout the summer the Social in Aviva Studios will be turned into a Chinese Tea Room, with visitors being able to sit on traditional Chinese mazha stools. A series of events and workshops will accompany the exhibition, including an artist talk on 2 July.
You can see full listings for Aviva Studios here.
