Ai Weiwei - sunflower seeds

Courtesy of the Tate Modern, London. © Ai Weiwei. 

Images from Sunflower Seeds, by Chinese conceptual artist Ai Weiwei, the newest exhibition on display in the Tate Modern's Unilever Series.

Courtesy of the Tate Modern, London. © Ai Weiwei. 

Courtesy of the Guardian. Photograph by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images.

Courtesy of the Guardian. Photograph by David Levene for the Guardian.

Courtesy of the Guardian. Photograph by David Levene for the Guardian.

According to the Tate Modern's exhibition website:

Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. However realistic they may seem, these life-sized sunflower seed husks are in fact intricately hand-crafted in porcelain. Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands.

Over 100 million porcelain seeds were individually formed and painted for an exhibition where visitors are encouraged to walk over, interact with and listen to the sound created by the manipulation of these delicate objects.

***Update***: Sadly, due to health concerns, Sunflower Seeds is no longer open for visitor interaction. It seems that the dust from the seeds posed a health hazard, so people are going to have to be content to be spectators only for the duration of this installation. For those of you who are interested, you can read more about it here.

(Via designboom)