My son had nightmares: Weiwei reveals trauma of his detention

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei today spoke of the emotional effect of his incarceration on him and his family as he visited London.

“It deeply affected me and affected a lot of people who knew me and my family, my mum and my son. My son had nightmares, he told me, that they would never let me out,” he said.

The artist and human rights campaigner, best known for filling Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall with porcelain sunflower seeds, appeared in the capital for the first time since he was imprisoned in China in 2011.

His visit comes before a landmark show of his work at the Royal Academy of Arts, which includes porcelain replicas of bones found at the site of a labour camp from the Mao era.

The exhibition also includes a vast sculpture made from steel rods straightened by hand after they were bent and twisted during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Weiwei said: “I’m honoured to have the chance to exhibit in London. This exhibition is my first major survey in London, a city I greatly admire. The selected artworks reflect my practice in best years and include new works made specifically for this show.”

The artist initially had to plan the show from his studio in Beijing using videos of the gallery in Piccadilly because the authorities in China had seized his passport.

His passport was eventually returned, only for the British Government to deny him a full visa because officials said he had not mentioned a criminal conviction (he was jailed for 81 days in 2011 over a contested tax bill) on his application. That decision was swiftly overturned after an outcry from his supporters. Weiwei said he was happy at the Government’s U-turn. “Very quickly after I got my passport I turned my face and saw the door slam from the other side. I’m very happy they changed it very fast and I really admire you can change such a formal decision very fast.”

The Royal Academy’s artistic director and co-curator Tim Marlow said Weiwei’s work had not been seen enough in the UK, adding: “This exhibition will begin to redress that balance and give an extensive new audience the chance to experience a creative phenomenon that is at once radical, political, architectural, historic, poetic, materially inventive and transformative.”

The show runs from September 19 to December 13.