Ai Weiwei's Laundromat Installation at Deitch Projects

Ai Weiwei's installation 'Laundromat' at Deitch Projects in New York transforms the gallery into a hybrid laundromat and clothing store using items collected from the Idomeni refugee camp in northern Greece. The artist gathered, washed, and cataloged hundreds of objects—clothes, shoes, photographs, and personal effects—left behind by refugees, primarily from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, after the camp's sudden dismantlement. The installation includes a wallpaper made of photographs documenting Ai Weiwei's work with refugees and a floor composed of a continuous newsfeed on the migration crisis. Ai Weiwei stated that he began by taking photographs to document the raw reality, hoping to provoke reflection on conditions that many choose to ignore. When refugees were forced to evacuate Idomeni, their belongings remained, and trucks were ready to haul them to a landfill; Ai Weiwei asked to purchase or take the items to prevent their destruction. This work follows his previous installations using life jackets in Berlin and Vienna, and rubber boats on the facade of Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.