Cultural Frame Ai Weiwei's art relates to the Cultural Frame of art, as when Ai Weiwei was a child, he had nothing as he was extremely poor, but his treasure was the sunflower seeds that he would keep in his pocket. In his culture, Sunflower Seeds were a very popular street snack, and in his piece, the seeds are used to represent the conformity that was experienced during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where posters depicted Chairman Mao as the sun, and the Chinese people as sunflowers turning towards him, however Ai Weiwei remembered the sharing of sunflower seeds as a gesture of compassion, friendship and kindness during a time of extreme poverty and uncertainty. This shows that Ai Weiwei drew inspiration from his past experiences as a child, and events that occurred during that time. China is renowned for having beautiful porcelain works, and Ai Weiwei using porcelain to create his sunflower seeds is a reference the Chinese cultural traditions.
Post-Modern Frame Although Ai Weiwei's “Sunflower Seeds” relates to the traditional cultural frame, his installment at the same time, challenges tradition & mainstream ideas of art. Each of the sunflower seeds are made of porcelain and each seed was not factory produced, going against the stereotype of ‘made in China’ mass production. Every seed is individually handcrafted by over 1,600 people, making each seed entirely unique. In the late 1970's, Ai Weiwei banded together with other pro-democracy artists in a group known as the Stars group. Many of Ai Weiwei's artworks were declined being put in art galleries by the Chinese government as his ideas are often very controversial, and poke fun at other Chinese Propaganda works.