This exhibition, called "Making Sense" is the largest of the artist in the British capital for eight years. It opens Friday until July 30 at the Design Museum.

Many works are presented to the public for the first time, and question the meaning we give to objects, what they say about our history, especially that of China, which Ai Weiwei had to leave in 2015 for criticizing the government too much.

"Design is a word that has to do with all human activities, and all my work revolves around this idea of design," Ai Weiwei told AFP.

In fact, the artist unveils works in which objects, some of which he has patiently collected for decades, are diverted from their primary use to serve as material for the construction of works never empty of political message.

Thus, this reinterpretation of one of the paintings of Claude Monet's famous Water Lilies series with 650,000 Lego bricks, and in which Ai Weiwei added a black shadow.

It represents a gateway to Xinjiang province, where China is accused of human rights violations of Muslim minorities. Ai Weiwei and his father, the poet Ai Qing, revered by former communist leaders before being repressed by the Communist Party, lived there for a few years in exile as a young child.

On the floor, a vast rectangle is composed of multitudes broken pieces of blue Chinese porcelain. These are sculptures destroyed in the artist's studio at the time of the dismantling by the authorities in 2018.

A little further, hundreds of thousands of teapot spouts handmade more than 1,000 years ago are spread out on the ground, illustrating the age of porcelain production in China.

China 'more brutal'

"All the things that Ai Weiwei has collected over the years are evidence of different stories, different cultural moments in China's history," says Justin McGuirk, the curator of the exhibition.

"Ai Weiwei always manages to create from destruction, and plays with the idea of construction, and all this often resonates with what is happening in China," he adds.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses in front of his works on the sidelines of the press conference presenting the exhibition of his works in London, at the Design Museum, April 4, 2023 © JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP

The artist is not really optimistic about the direction taken by his country of origin. "China is not becoming a more civilized society, but rather more brutal against anyone with different ideas," said Ai Weiwei, who sees as "natural" the new tensions between the Asian giant and the West.

"China feels that it has the power and the right to redefine the world order," that it "can have an important role in changing the rules, defined by the Western world," he added.

But China is not the artist's only target. Two huge snakes made of life jackets and backpacks are dedicated to refugees who have died over the past twenty years trying to reach Europe.

And the artist unveils new versions of his famous photographs of middle fingers taken in front of symbols of power or culture, such as the Palace of Westminster in London, the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Trump Tower in New York.

More than a Chinese dissident "I am a dissident of human unconsciousness and injustice," says Ai Weiwei.

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses in front of one of his works on the sidelines of the press conference presenting the exhibition of his works in London, at the Design Museum, April 4, 2023 © JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP

"Europe has been at peace for the last 70 or 80 years, but during that time many problems have arisen or developed. (...) Human conditions are not good, and freedom of expression is probably also in danger," says the artist, who defines himself as a perpetual "outsider", now settled in Portugal, after having lived in the United States, China or Germany.

© 2023 AFP