Ai Weiwei Yours Truly (2019)

Ai Weiwei famous for his largescale installation work and his dogged social justice advocacy created a careerdefining work in 2015 with Large mounted at Alcatraz the emblematic site associated with egregious incarceration conditions and radical Native American protest At the core of Large were portraits of prisoners of conscience coupled with the opportunity to write letters of solidarity to the imprisoned In her impassioned and powerful film exhibition curator Cheryl Haines visits several current and former prisoners including American whistleblower Chelsea Manning and learns how these letters were vital to their survival The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned This is not the case When you constrain freedom freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill Ai Weiwei