Shot across an astonishing 23 countries, Human Flow is artist Ai Weiwei’s panoramic document of the global refugee crisis. Combining world spanning breadth but never losing sight of individual human stories, this is a visually arresting work that brings new insights and compassion for its subjects.
Making extensive use of drone photography’s ability to show vast scales, this film provides insights into the plight of the 65 million people currently displaced. Straying beyond the headlines, Human Flow also offers a clear picture of the forces causing this unrooting, Never aestheticizing, it nevertheless offers a broader view beyond the misery we are presented with elsewhere. Staying with subjects beyond the immediate catastrophe, new stories – sometimes darker, some more hopeful – start to bloom.
Cutting through the saturation of news images of the crisis, Weiwei brings an artist’s eye to helping us understand the scale and human cost so we can see and understand anew.