Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) has selected Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei to create a new public artwork for the second edition of the Neil Balnaves Tallawoladah Lawn Commission. The project is set to be unveiled in September on the institution’s harborside lawn at Circular Quay.

The commission series was launched last year by the Balnaves Foundation in tribute to the late philanthropist Neil Balnaves, whose cumulative lifetime donations to Australian nonprofit arts, education, and health organizations reached an estimated AUD 20 million (USD 14 million). Running through 2028, the initiative invites a different major artist each year to produce a large-scale piece for the site overlooking Sydney Harbour. British sculptor Thomas J Price inaugurated the series with Ancient Feelings (2025), a three-meter-tall golden bronze sculpture depicting the head of a Black woman.

Ai is a Beijing-born artist whose practice spans sculpture, installation, film, and photography, often incorporating social activism and dissent. His early works, including the performance Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995) and the photography series Study of Perspective (1995–2017), established his international reputation. He later gained even wider recognition for co-designing the Beijing National Stadium with architects Herzog & de Meuron for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics; filling Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall with 100 million handmade porcelain seeds in Sunflower Seeds (2010); and presenting Bang (2013), an installation consisting of 886 wooden stools, at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. Ai’s work is no stranger to Australian audiences: his Law of the Journey (2017), a large-scale installation made of salvaged rubber from refugee vessels, was shown at the 21st Biennale of Sydney in 2018. 

MCA Australia director Suzanne Cotter described Ai as “an artist whose voice resonates far beyond the art world,” while Balnaves Foundation CEO Hamish Balnaves added that his practice “challenges us to think deeply about humanity, power, and responsibility.” Ai himself expressed his excitement over the commission, calling it a great honor.

While no details of the sculpture have been revealed yet, MCA Australia noted that it will be “one of the most thought-provoking and impactful public artworks presented in Australia in 2026.”

Emily Ng is an editorial intern at ArtAsiaPacific.