In today’s post, I will be comparing the social media movements of Ai Weiwei and Hannah Stonehouse Hudson in my own opinion. Ai Weiwei is not your typical artist, he does art in many ways and forms to get people to understand what is right. Hannah Stonehouse Hudson is not your average photographer either. She tells stories through her photographs and gets people together within the virtual world. One is also a major dog person, where the other is a major cat person. Can you tell which one is which? First, I will start off with Ai Weiwei and continue towards Hannah Stonehouse Hudson.
The first thing that I will talk about would be the problem and goal that Ai Weiwei is trying to resolve. It seems that he wants to bring out the voices of his people on social issues where it is extremely hard to do so. He wants people to experience the freedom of speech, the freedom of being able to do what is right. “Once you experience freedom, it stays in your heart. No one can take it away,” (Ai Weiwei).
His theory would be allowing ordinary people a chance to change public opinion. He tries to make his presence and thoughts known to the public, which encourages people to do the same. “If we don’t push, nothing happens. Life is more interesting when you make a little effort,” (Ai Weiwei). You can find more information about Ai Weiwei here.
The methods and strategies he used all depended on what he was doing at the time being. Most of the time he tweets his thoughts on Twitter, making what he thinks of social issues known to the world. He actually had his own blog for a time before it was forcefully shutdown, this was when he turned to Twitter instead. Other times he creates sculptures, such as, the children’s backpack wall that spelled out this sentence; “She lived happily on this earth for seven years”. Other projects he created can be found here.
Hannah Stonehouse is another social media sensation. Her goal and/or problem in mind was finding others within a virtual community and commuting everybody’s interests through social media. This may also lead to her photography work, where she lives to tell stories about pets (mainly about dogs), factories, bird dog sessions, or editorial work. If you would like to see more of her photography, you can visit this site here.
Her theory was spreading word and forming communities with people whom shared the same interests. She wanted to share the “LOVE” that was once shared to her though troubling times. There was a TEDX show about herself and more of what she is doing called The Empathy and Power of Virtual Communities.
The methods that are used are mainly her photography and posting it through social media. She shares her photos on Facebook since she likes to give people a little look before she does something with her photographs. Once it went on, it went viral. This is what happened when she took a photo of John Unger and his dog Schoep. John Unger would go into Lake Superior with Schoep and lets him fall asleep against him. For more information about John Unger and his dog Schoep story, go to this site.
Their problems may be different, yet almost a little the same as well. Both Ai Weiwei and Hannah Stonehouse Hudson want to their communities to be more open into the world. They both send out their thoughts and comments through social media to create a community people whom share the same interests as they do and want to help change. I guess the main difference between the two would be on how they do it to get their ideas across. What about you? What do you think of Ai Weiwei’s and Hannah Stonehouse Hudson’s ways of spreading word through their art?
artforsocietalchange 