In 1976 Mao Zedong dies, the Gang of Four are brought to trial and found guilty. Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing is rehabilitated and returns with his family to Beijing.

In 1978 the Beijing Spring, a name intended to echo the Prague Spring, ushers in a season of liberalisation with Deng Xiaoping. People are allowed to express their views and to criticise the regime in dazibaos, or tazebaos, hand-written newspapers with large characters posted on the Wall of Democracy. The country’s art academies reopen and Ai Weiwei enrols at the Film Academy of Beijing, where he studies animation in the first class to take in students since the Cultural Revolution. He was to quit studying the following year.

Photo: Ai Weiwei on a train to Beijing from Xinjiang, 1975

Photo: Ai Weiwei in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 1976

Photo: Ai Weiwei sketching at the Old Summer Palace at the site of the original “Circle of Animals”, Beijing, 1976