Featured in Mother Nature in the Bardo: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads: Gold is cultural resistance cast in bronze and gold. Ai Weiwei reimagines the twelve zodiac heads looted from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan) in 1860 by Anglo-French forces. Five of the twelve heads (dragon, dog, snake, ram, and rooster) were never recovered. Using references from the Qing dynasty, Ai completed the set to restore what history shattered.

When the Zodiac Heads tour began in 2011, Ai was detained by Chinese authorities for almost 3 months. Since then, the work has become one of the most recognized sculptural series of the 21st century. It was shown in more than 20 major institutions across Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia. It has been installed at the National Gallery of Victoria, Phoenix Art Museum, The Andy Warhol Museum, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, and Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, among many others.