ai weiwei on why a dying tree inspired his first drawing in more than 50 years
ai weiwei returns to drawing with a portrait of a dying oak tree
When Ai Weiwei heard that Sherwood Forest’s 1,200-year-old Major Oak had reached the end of its life, he felt an unexpected urge to draw. The sketch, made beneath the ancient oak during the summer solstice, is the artist’s first drawing in more than fifty years. It now forms the basis of A Tree (2026), an animation commissioned by CIRCA in collaboration with Factory International and presented on London’s Piccadilly Lights following the opening of Button Up!, Weiwei’s major exhibition in Manchester.
For Ai Weiwei, the drawing is less about returning to an abandoned medium than responding to a particular moment in his own life. ‘I am sixty-nine years old, almost seventy, and both my surroundings and I have undergone significant changes,’ he tells designboom. ‘When I read the news that this 1,200-year-old tree had died, I suddenly felt compelled to go there and make a sketch.’
Standing before the oak, he found himself thinking not only about its immense scale but also about its lifespan. The tree had endured twelve centuries of changing seasons before reaching its end. To Weiwei, its death was neither symbolic nor exceptional. It belonged to the same cycle as every other living being. ‘I do not think there is any difference between the death of a tree and the death of any other living being,’ he says. ‘They all complete the same cycle of life. Over the course of 1,200 years, this tree endured wind, rain, dew, cold before finally relinquishing the possibility of continuing to live.’
Ai Weiwei sketches the 1,200-year-old Major Oak in Sherwood Forest during the summer solstice | all images courtesy of CIRCA, unless stated otherwise
A conversation across generations
The animation pairs the drawing, commissioned by the public art platform CIRCA, with Trees, a poem written by Weiwei’s father, the celebrated Chinese poet Ai Qing, in 1940. Written more than eighty years before the drawing was made, the poem reflects on the relationship between a tree, the land, and the surrounding forest. Together, the poem and the drawing bring two generations into conversation, united by a shared attention to the natural world. The work ends with an acknowledgment that the oak’s cycle has come to an end. Weiwei recalls hearing a painter describe optimism as the belief that another spring will always arrive. For this tree, he says, there will be no next season. ‘I was reminded of the optimistic words of a painter, who said that an optimist always believes another spring will come. Yet for this tree, there will be no further spring. It is simply tired. It leaves the land where it has lived for so long,’ he shares with us.
Ai Weiwei stands before the 1,200-year-old Major Oak in Sherwood Forest | image by Josef O Connor
From ancient trees to grand narratives
Trees have appeared throughout Weiwei’s practice for decades, each carrying a different history. In China, he assembled sculptures from the trunks of ancient trees collected from remote mountain villages. In Brazil, he created a cast of another 1,200-year-old tree. More recently, he recreated the image of a historic tree as a full-scale sculpture in Ukraine, where soldiers climbed onto its branches to echo a photograph taken decades earlier in China.
‘Each of these trees carries a different meaning,’ the artist explains, ‘yet every one of them is equally important.’
Seen within that broader body of work, A Tree becomes another chapter in an ongoing investigation into memory, survival, and the lives carried by objects and landscapes. The themes also run through Button Up!, which Weiwei describes as the largest and most ambitious exhibition of his career, tracing two centuries of political and social transformation. ‘The exhibition I am presenting in Manchester is the largest and most complex exhibition I have ever undertaken. It encompasses myself, my family and our era, reflecting on the profound transformations of the past two hundred years – from colonialism and slavery to communism, capitalism, and post-capitalism, and finally to today’s age of artificial intelligence,’ Ai Weiwei reflects. ‘Its scope is vast, and its narrative is comprehensive and cohesive.’
the artist photographs the Major Oak shortly before creating his drawing | image by Josef O Connor
A meditation on history, on CIRCA’s public screens
Against that scale, returning to a single drawing might appear modest. Ai Weiwei sees it differently. ‘Drawing a sketch of a tree is not a simple gesture,’ he highlights. ‘It connects a grand historical narrative with the finest details of perception and expression, because no great narrative can exist without meticulous observation. Only when observation is pursued to its fullest extent does it become an understanding of life; that life is not necessarily human life.’
Presented across CIRCA’s network of public screens, A Tree extends these reflections beyond the museum, placing them into the rhythm of everyday urban life. ‘Over the past few years, I have collaborated with CIRCA on several works. As a platform for public art, CIRCA is itself an act of creativity. For an artist, working through an open public art platform presents its own challenge, both as a creative endeavor and as a way of sustaining a space for artistic practice,’ he observes.
At a time when public spaces are often dominated by advertising and constant streams of information, Weiwei offers the image of a tree that has stood for twelve centuries and the recognition that even the longest lives eventually come to an end.
Ai Weiwei photographed with the completed drawing beneath the Major Oak
the artist creates his first drawing in more than five decades beneath the ancient oak
Weiwei holds the sketchbook containing his drawing of the Major Oak shortly after completing it | image by Josef O Connor
the drawing is reproduced across a two-page spread in the artist’s sketchbook
Ai Weiwei’s first drawing in more than 50 years depicts the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest
detail of the hand-signed edition featuring Weiwei’s handwritten notes and signature
the artist’s drawing of the Major Oak fills the Piccadilly Lights screen | image by Leroy Boateng
an animation commissioned by CIRCA in collaboration with Factory International | image by Leroy Boateng
Ai Qing’s 1940 poem Trees introduces the animation on Piccadilly Lights | image by Leroy Boateng
Ai Qing and a young Ai Weiwei in an archival family photograph | image courtesy of Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei attends the premiere of A Tree at Piccadilly Lights in London | image by Leroy Boateng
Ai Weiwei greets visitors following the public premiere of A Tree | image by Leroy Boateng
A Tree becomes another chapter in an ongoing investigation into memory | image by Leroy Boateng
project info:
name: A Tree
artist: Ai Weiwei | @aiww
commissioner: CIRCA | @circa.art
screening location: Piccadilly Lights, London
dates: July 9th – September 9th, 2026
exhibition: Button Up!
venue: Factory International | @factory_international
location: Manchester, UK
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