Ai Weiwei´s 'Human Flow': transnational conflicts and border discrepancies between ethics, aesthetics and politics in the representation of refugee citizens

Abstract

Taking the documentary Human Flow by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, as a case for study, we´ll focus on some of his controversial approaches to the refugee crisis, in order to observe the need to link ethical and aesthetic paradigms in the representations of current political practices. To do so, we will review some of the most important theories about the matter of the last few decades, contrasting them with the narrative strategies that Weiwei makes in its own cinematographic production. In doing it, we´ll try to locate where the lack between ethical and aesthetic discourses can occur, and the consequences that this has for the possibility of performing a political art.