Challenge:

The Ai Weiwei Center for Humanity is the vision of the renowned artist and activist Ai Weiwei. The Center aims to leverage his extensive body of work and international reputation to engage people worldwide with human rights issues. I was brought on to help solidify this concept during the research and design phase, with a focus on securing key partnerships and funding. While Ai's name and image are globally recognized, the project itself needed to be clearly defined and compelling, especially since it would be the first of its kind. In addition to public engagement and partnership development, there was a need for a robust operational plan.

Approach:

Translating Ai's artistic and political vision into a commercial offering required a collaborative effort with his broader team. Together, we explored feasible options, ensuring that stakeholder input was effectively gathered, considered, and prioritized. While the Center would operate independently, ongoing collaboration with Ai's archival and management team was crucial. We aimed to design operations that allowed for both flexibility and accountability, ensuring that the Center could be administratively self-sufficient while safeguarding not only tens of millions of dollars' worth of art but also Ai's brand.

I assembled a small team to develop a preliminary brand book, messaging strategy, and landing page to provide coherence to the project. This foundation was essential for empowering and unifying Ai's team as they worked to establish key relationships with corporate partners, foundations, and individual sponsors.

Outputs:

• Preliminary brand book

• Messaging strategy

• Landing page

• Board support

• Protocols and SOPs

• Tech stack design and deployment

• Team onboarding

Client Feedback:

"We're doing something unprecedented. It's got a lot of moving parts and we're operating in multiple industries simultaneously. Tasha's ability to help us forge a path is remarkable. She is completely unintimidated by unknowns and complexities, remaining open-minded and curious about possibilities without becoming distracted. Because of this, we've advanced faster and more confidently than I thought possible. Tasha not only ignited our group of stakeholders, but gave our team its strategic focus."

KAREN LAUTANEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Image credits: Ai Weiwei, Karen Lautanen