Ai Weiwei Launches Three-Part Project at BABELL 2026
ai weiwei is bringing a three-part anti-censorship project to Livraria Lello’s BABELL festival in Porto, with an artwork, a publication and a new censored-books series set to launch between 24 and 29 June 2026. The collaboration puts a major literary venue and one of contemporary art’s most visible figures at the center of a public response to pressure on books and free expression.
Livraria Lello said the project will unfold through A4, a large-scale sculptural installation built around a blank sheet of paper, a new volume of poems by Ai Qing with a foreword by Ai Weiwei, and a publishing collection dedicated to censored books with covers designed by Ai Weiwei. The first element is due on 24 June, the opening day of BABELL, which runs from 24 to 29 June 2026.
Porto and Livraria Lello
Francisca Pedro Pinto, Livraria Lello’s Brand Director, tied the collaboration to the bookshop’s own model of access: “The book saved Livraria Lello. Now, it can help transform the city – not as a symbol, but as a tool for access, participation and freedom,” she said. Livraria Lello introduced its admission system redeemable against books in 2015, and BABELL keeps that logic in place because visitors must buy a book from any local bookshop to attend events.
The festival is city-wide and is designed to turn Porto into a hub for literature, art and critical debate. Writers including Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie are part of the programme, placing Ai Weiwei’s intervention alongside a broader event built around publishing and public discussion rather than a single exhibition venue.
A4 and Ai Qing
A4 is the most direct artistic statement in the new project. The installation centers on a blank sheet of paper and references recent protests in which demonstrators held empty pages when speech was restricted. Ai Weiwei said: “The threat to authoritarian regimes lies not only in visible protest, but in the idea that people can think and express themselves freely.”
The second strand links the project to Ai Weiwei’s family history. Livraria Lello will release a new volume of poems by Ai Qing, Ai Weiwei’s father, with a foreword by Ai Weiwei. That pairing moves the project from a single artwork into publishing, and it places a personal lineage inside a public argument over censorship.
Censored Books at BABELL
The third part is a new publishing collection dedicated to censored books, with covers designed by Ai Weiwei. The series extends the collaboration beyond the festival dates and into the bookshop’s catalog, using design to mark titles that have been restricted elsewhere.
The project arrives as the article cites more than 10,000 recorded cases of book censorship in North American schools in the past two years. BABELL 2026 runs from 24th -30th June in the festival listing, while the collaboration itself is scheduled to launch from 24 to 29 June 2026, beginning with A4 on 24 June. That leaves the immediate focus on how much of the project readers will encounter first in the bookshop, and how much will travel into the city through the festival program.
