Ai Weiwei to live-stream Q&A after screening of ‘Human Flow’

The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei will video chat with a midvalley audience Sunday afternoon, after a screening of his documentary “Human Flow” at The Temporary at Willits.

The Temporary’s event is one of hundreds of simultaneous “Human Flow” screenings at schools and hosted by community action organizations around the U.S., followed by Ai taking questions from audiences across the country.

The screening and live-stream Q&A marks something of a preview for Ai’s much-anticipated multi-day July visit to Anderson Ranch Arts Center, where he will be the nonprofit’s 2018 International Artist Honoree and will give a free public talk July 18.

Released in the fall, “Human Flow” was short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. It is among a series of projects Ai has undertaken related to the global refugee crisis. The film follows him over the course of a year as he visits 23 countries and shares the stories of refugees seeking safety, shelter and justice.

The event comes during a characteristically busy moment for the tireless Ai. This week he opened an exhibition in Doha, Qatar, that includes his installation piece “Laundromat,” which collects more than 2,000 clothing items abandoned by refugees on Lesbos in the Greek isles.

On Tuesday, he published the book “Humanity,” which collects his thoughts on the refugee crisis from recent speeches and interviews.

And Sunday, in the New York Times’ T Magazine, he recounted his memories of living in New York as a student in the early 1980s.

Ai’s recent public art projects include “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” in Denver’s Civic Center Park and “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” a work about the migration crisis that installed more than 300 site-specific sculptures across New York City.