Sunflower Seeds raise a quintessence of dust in the Turbine Hall

After my confession last week to having pinched a porcelain sunflower seed from Ai Weiwei's Tate Modern Turbine Hall installation, the point seems moot now that visitors have been stopped from walking over the seeds because of health and safety fears. The concern was that Tate staff might risk respiratory problems from long-term exposure to the porcelain dust being raised by visitors' exuberant engagement with the ceramic "beach". When I visited on Monday, the seeds looked calm and beautiful, like a raked Japanese garden, but it is sad not to be able to feel them crunch underfoot; encountering the work physically unlocks so much of its richness. I wonder whether it might be possible to find a solution: perhaps if a small number of visitors at a time were asked to walk very quietly and carefully over the work, rather than a dust-kicking free-for-all? Apparently Weiwei is "very disappointed" – but the health worries came first.