Woman in China stages public art protests over husband’s jailing and other social injustices
- A mother of two in Fuyang, eastern China, is using protest art to seek the release from prison of her businessman husband, convicted of being a triad leader
- She rolled giant inflatable balls proclaiming his innocence across a bridge, formed e-bikes into an SOS sign, and live-streams volunteers in a mock jail cell
A mother of two in eastern China is so determined to make her jailed husband’s plight known that she is creating brazen public art happenings that have gone viral on social media.
Tang Jie has invited supporters to go on live-streamed, 24-hour hunger strikes inside a metal cage in her flat in the city of Fuyang, and early on the morning of September 17, she and a team of helpers unleashed five giant inflatable balls on a suspension bridge.
The desperate 34-year-old is demanding a new trial for Ge Linlin, a businessman convicted in December 2019 of being a triad leader and given a 22-year jail sentence.
Each of the balls they released was two metres in diameter and covered in words proclaiming Ge’s innocence. The spectacle of what look like outsize billiard balls rolling down one side of the bridge has been viewed 390,000 times in three days since the video was uploaded to Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter.
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Giant inflatable balls part of Chinese woman's ‘protest art’ seeking the release of jailed husband