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On his very first day of house arrest, the day Ai Weiwei's political-prisoner exhibition closed at Alcatraz, the San Francisco gallery that had helped stage the show telephoned John Kiriakou and walked him around the entire exhibition on an iPad so that he could see his own portrait and the ceramic flowers filling the sinks of the solitary confinement cells.
Ai Weiwei’s exhibition on political prisoners at Alcatraz closed on the same day Kiriakou began house arrest — his very first day at home under the terms of his sentence.[1]
The call
The San Francisco-based gallery that had assisted in putting the show on knew that he was at home that day. They telephoned him and then walked around the entire exhibition carrying an iPad, so that he could see each one of the portraits in turn. He got to see his own.[1]
They also took him into the small cells — the solitary confinement cells — where Ai Weiwei had filled each sink with ceramic doves and ceramic flowers, and showed him all of those as well. Kiriakou called it really incredible, and very, very generous.[1][2]
The exhibition
The cells held more than the ceramics. As the interview described it, they also carried audio tracks of prison settings from around the world, in many different languages.[3] The Lego tableau in the warehouse space carried line drawings of over a hundred political prisoners then incarcerated worldwide, Kiriakou among them, and visitors leaving the exhibit were invited to sign a postcard custom-made for one of the prisoners.[4][5]
The timing is what gives the episode its shape in Kiriakou’s telling. The show that had made him one of a hundred faces on a wall closed on the day his own confinement began at home, and the only way he could see it was through a screen carried by someone else — an arrangement he described without complaint, and only as generosity.
He would not meet the artist for some years, and when he did it was by accident, on a street in Berlin.
Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.
