You might miss this installation (and its point) unless you know where and what it is, since this is what it looks like to passersby at Bute and Hastings:
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This, however, is what it looks like from above:
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It’s F Grass, by “China’s most internationally celebrated artist and social activist, Ai Weiwei.” After two years of persuasion, the Vancouver Biennale was able to secure this public-art installation created specifically for this section of Harbour Green Park where it will reside for a year.
F Grass uses industrial cast iron “grass” to shape an elegant calligraphic “F”. It’s an enigma that a Vancouver audience might interpret as symbolic of the recreational crop we’re most famous for and our laissez faire attitude towards the laws that prohibit it, but the meaning is more about the relationship between the individual and the collective and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of Chinese government censorship, control and secrecy.
More here at the Vancouver Biennale site.
