It’s a torrential day in Sheffield, and my umbrella collapses on the walk across the city to the hotel where the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is staying. He’s waiting for me in a nondescript meeting room with a notebook in which he is drawing a luxurious umbrella. He is low-key in a grey jacket and dark blue sweatshirt, his greying beard positively well-mannered compared with some of its more unruly outings. Ai is an artist who constantly responds to the world, whether with it’s sketches, Instagram posts of everyone he meets or a personal and artistic engagement with injustices. It’s for the last that he’s in Sheffield for the documentary film festival Doc/Fest, at which he’s presenting The Rest, his second film about…

Source: The Times June 18, 2019 23:01 UTC