An Irishwoman’s Diary on Ai Weiwei in Alcatraz

Sleepovers! What could be more fun for kids? Sleepovers in museums, perhaps, with sleeping bags lined up next to sarcophagi and ancient mummies (the other kind of ancient mummy?).

How about a sleepover on The Rock in San Francisco Bay, at the maximum-security lock-down jail cells formerly occupied by Mafia monster Al Capone and William “Machine Gun” Kelly?

Such is the current passion for school sleepovers in museums and parks over here that a Bay Area boy scout pack recently scored an Alcatraz field trip sleepover.

The Park Service cleverly stipulated that the kids had to pick up every last bit of tourist trash. They did this so well they’ll be invited back.

And as they said nighty-night to the bright lights of Fisherman Wharf 10 minutes away, they learned (the hard-time way) that the scary lockdown ker-chungghhkk noise on CSI and Law and Order was recorded right here.

The Rock

The top tourist magnet in the US, bar none, is The Rock. It attracts more more visitors than the Grand Canyon or the Empire State Building. “Alcatraz” is Spanish for “pelican”, and there are many, with strikingly untidy nests. With 5,000 visitors a day and a million visitors a year, Alcatraz needs good trash collection.

Right now it needs more, because of the “@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz” art installations (until late April). Ferries are fuller than ever, and so are trashcans by the time the last night-time tour leaves.

Ai Weiwei is the world-famous artist currently working at his Beijing home while under house arrest and forbidden to travel. His major focus as an artist is political dissent. Is Alcatraz a good site for a political prisoner?

The sheer oddness of finding his avant-garde work on this rock brings many more tourists from Fisherman's Wharf, and makes a point that is ironic and provocative. I challenge you to sit inside a cell on Block A while listening to Pussy Riot singing protest songs in Russian without thinking "This is weird." Translated lyrics for Stay Tuned are on the wall and I think you'll find them surprising too.

But all the "@Large pieces" are difficult and provocative. The largest are in New Industries Hall, a blockhouse flooded with bay views and watery light where goody-goody prisoners sewed uniforms. With Wind, a winding and colourfully hand-painted Chinese new year dragon, snakes its way inside the bare walls, with a cheeky artist's self-portrait added to the tail.

Beyond is Trace uses 1,500,000 Lego pieces to depict 176 jailed political activists, including Mandela, Snowden and Manning. A total of 80 volunteers worked against the clock to finish the work. On the next floor, Refraction is a huge silver bird with small tea kettles sitting here and there.

A young guide gently explained these referenced the solar power hopefully replacing the yak poo once used for cooking in Tibet (a pro-Tibetan freedom statement). “Oh,” I said. “I’d never have guessed.”

In the hospital blocks are several soundscapes and also wash basins and baths and toilets filled with delicate white porcelain flowers. It's called Blossoms and the explanation was that after China's brief Hundred Flowers campaign, Ai's father, an intellectual, survived the Cultural Revolution as a toilet cleaner.

So I’d never have guessed that either, but am grateful to For-Site Foundation, run by Cheryl Haines. This art organisation commissioned the artist, found the site, and trained and supplied our youthful guides, most of them students.

Haines acted as the artist’s eyes in his enforced absence. She has her own philosophy of protest art, demanding provocative locations as part of the artistic encounter. Thanks to her, the Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy has placed his organic pieces around the Presidio, a former Spanish garrison celebrating its upgrade of its officers’ club as a historic monument.

Prisoners

Ai, of course, cannot visit his own art show on the Rock, which was home to other protests. Several prisoners tried to escape and your admission ticket takes you through every single attempt.

Most poignant were the Anglia brothers and pal, who tried to swim to Fisherman’s Wharf in 1962, and were never seen again. If they’d waited a few months the prison would have closed, and reverted back to the bird sanctuary and army ruin it once was

In 1969, local Native Americans from San Francisco occupied the island for 19 months as part of a wave of protest. Local bands sent them supplies – notably Jefferson Starship, but it ended sadly.

Postcards on sale at the souvenir shop say it all: “FREE room and board. Bars in every room. Guards on duty 24 hours a day for your protection. FREE boat ride and transport (one way only). No PARKING or TRAFFIC problems. Locker room. Natural swimming facilities. Plenty of time. Wow, what a view.”