The artists Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor completed an eight-mile walk across London to show their support for refugees at a brisk pace. They left the Royal Academy of Arts along with around 300 supporters and arrived an hour earlier than scheduled at Stratford in east London. Members of the charity Refugee Council were there to gratefully receive the blankets that the walkers carried as a symbol of their concern for the plight of refugees, thousands of whom are making a perilous journey from war-torn Syria to Europe. Fellow walkers included a Japanese dealer who flew to London to join the artists after they announced their intention to complete the walk on Tuesday. Ai's six-year-old son saw his father depart at 10am and was at Stratford, leaping into his father's arms when he arrived. Members of Ai Weiwei’s and Anish Kapoor's studio walked alongside the artists as did staff of Lisson Gallery. No ordinary charitable gesture, the event was intended to open up a discussion about how countries choose to welcome or close their borders to people fleeing conflict worldwide.
