[41] The Daily Telegraph has criticized the expense of the project,[42] which cost £25,542,701 to build,[4] and also highlighted concerns that more than half of its 147,000 annual visitors only entered to use the lavatory.

[46] In February 2018 it was announced that Firstsite had returned to Arts Council 'National Portfolio Organisation' status despite having only recorded 131,663 visitors in the previous year and having made a loss of £243,000.

[47] On 22 March 2018 it was announced Dr Noorzaman Rashid, Robert Surnam and Helen Organ resigned from their roles as trustees at Firstsite.

Ai's piece, called Postcard for Political Prisoners, incorporated a photograph of the running machine used by Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.

After initially accepting Ai's idea, Firstsite's director said that it could not include his project "due to time constraints, and because it did not fit with the concept of the exhibition".