🫠 Ai Weiwei on China, the West and shrinking space for dissent

Reuters

In China, censorship relates to red lines. You cannot cross some red lines. It’s about state policy and discussions (about) state power. It’s also related to what they would call minority or religious issues, which can be very sensitive, so people would not touch those topics. If touched, it could cause you different levels of damage. But in the West, especially now, you also see censorship everywhere— not necessarily just from the state but from companies, from institutions, from schools or museums.

Anything by or about Ai Weiwei (艾未未) is worth a read. He’s dynamic and nuanced, and I don’t always agree with his views, but his passion, compassion, and willingness to speak truth to power are unimpeachable.

A quick reminder, he’s the artist who dropped a 2,000-year-old urn in a series of black and white photos in the '90s.

Historically speaking, iconoclasm is pretty ugly and makes for some craven, manipulative bedfellows, but those urn drop images are still important and potent today.