'1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows': A Memoir by Ai Weiwei (A Must read)

On November 2, 2021 the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's memoir "1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows" came out.  Over the years this blog has followed his career as a dissident artist, and his solidarity with Cuban prisoners of conscience. Most recently he wrote the entry for Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara in Time Magazine.

Penguin Books South Africa provided a video, along with the below transcript, of Ai Weiwei on why he wrote the book.

‘The idea for this book came to me during the eighty-one days I was held in secret detention by the Chinese government in 2011. During those long weeks, I thought often of my father, a poet who had been exiled during Mao Zedong’s Anti-Rightist Campaign. I realized how incomplete my understanding of him was and how much I regretted the unbridgeable gap between us. I did not want my son to suffer the same regret. I resolved that if I was released I would write down what I knew of my father and tell my son honestly who I am, what life is like, why freedom is so precious, and why autocracy fears art.’ - Ai Weiwei

Back in July 2021 Benedict  Rogers of Hong Kong Watch interviewed the Chinese artist, who asked him about the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. They also discussed the situation in Hong Kong, Taiwan, his film about the 2019 protest movement, Cockroach (2020) and his  memoir, '1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows'.

Although China and Cuba are geographically very far from each other, both nations are suffering the scourge of Communism, and this joins both peoples in the struggle for freedom. Ai Wei Wei's memoir is required reading.

Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei's solidarity with a Cuban prisoner of conscience

 “The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.”
— Ai Weiwei

Trace consists of 176 portraits of those imprisoned or exiled for their beliefs

Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has a new exhibit titled @LARGE: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz  that opened on September 27, 2014 and will be on view through April 26, 2015 at the old Alcatraz prison.

 Trace, one of seven installations by the artist features 176 portraits, all built using Lego bricks. Each portrait “represents an individual who has been imprisoned or exiled because of his or her beliefs, actions, or affiliations." Ai Weiwei has called them “heroes of our time.” One of them is Cuban prisoner of conscience Iván Fernández Depestre.












Take a look inside "@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz” in the video below and hear from the people behind this unprecedented exhibition exploring human rights and freedom of expression.


Often times victims of repression are made to feel alone and isolated by the regime oppressing them but with this exhibition Ai Weiwei highlights many who are still jailed. Among them a Cuban prisoner of conscience.

Ai Weiwei Explores Human Rights and Freedom of Expression
in Series of New, Site-Specific Installations Inspired by Alcatraz Island
Exhibition on view September 27, 2014 Through April 26, 2015
For more information visit here.
 

Documentary on Chinese Artist and Dissident Returns to Miami

"To live your life in fear is worse than losing your freedom." - Ai Weiwei

Powerful documentary on Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei returns to screens in South Florida this weekend in Miami at the Cosford Cinema and on Miami Beach at the Cinematheque.

If you didn't see the film at the Miami International Film Festival back in March 2012 then be sure not to miss it now. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is a 2012 documentary that follows and gains complete access to Ai Weiwei.

The documentary demonstrates the power of nonviolent action when applied creatively. Protesting the Beijing Olympics, documenting the number of school children killed in the May 12, 2008 Sichuan Quake, and pursuing justice after he was physically assaulted by a Chinese police officer applying creative and artistic sensibilities in an effective manner combined with great courage.

                       AI WEIWEI photographing himself at a Munich hospital in September 2009, with a bag containing fluid that was surgically removed from his skull. Courtesy the artist and Haus der Kunst, Munich.

Ai Weiwei has been beaten, detained, disappeared for 81 days and prosecuted for his outspokenness despite being one of the better known Chinese artists in the world.  He was so badly beaten that he required fluid to be surgically removed from his skull.

Despite this he continues to speak out and make China his home.  He has also received powerful demonstrations of solidarity from the Chinese populace which are seen in the documentary.

He is the son of a prominent Chinese poet who was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and comes from the ranks of China's elite.



The official website of this documentary offers the following description of its main subject and the film:

Ai Weiwei is China's most famous international artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. Against a backdrop of strict censorship and an unresponsive legal system, Ai expresses himself and organizes people through art and social media. In response, Chinese authorities have shut down his blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention.

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY is the inside story of a dissident for the digital age who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundaries of art and politics. First-time director Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to Ai while working as a journalist in China. Her detailed portrait provides a nuanced exploration of contemporary China and one of its most compelling public figures.

Overcoming Fear in China: The Life of Artist and Activist Ai Wei Wei

"Only by encouraging individual freedom, or the individual power of the mind, and by trusting our own feelings, can collective acts be meaningful." - Ai Weiwei on 31 May 2010 and 1 June 2010


The Miami International Film Festival will be screening the film documentary AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY at 7pm tonight (March 9, 2012) and again on Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 7:30pm. It is a film about an artist who is also a human rights activist in China. He has criticized the Chinese government's stand on democracy and human rights while also denouncing government corruption. He has been arrested and held in custody for over two months in 2011.

Watch Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei? on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.

In the Frontline Documentary Who's Afraid of Ai Wei Wei? the artist/activist made clear that he is not fearless: "I was so fearful, that’s not fearless. I am more fearful than other people, may be, then I act more brave because I know the danger is really there. If you don’t act, the dangers become stronger."

The director, Alison Klayman, will be available to answer questions about the documentary Never Sorry following the screenings.



The Sundance Film Festival provided the following synopsis of the film:

Ai Weiwei is known for many things—great architecture, subversive in-your-face art, and political activism. He has also called for greater transparency on the part of the Chinese state. Director Alison Klayman chronicles the complexities of Ai’s life for three years, beginning with his rise to public prominence via blog and Twitter after he questioned the deaths of more than 5,000 students in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The record continues through his widely publicized arrest in Beijing in April of 2011. As Ai prepares various works of art for major international exhibitions, his activism heats up, and his run-ins with China’s authorities become more and more frequent.

In this unprecedented look at Ai and those close to him, Klayman’s camera captures his forthrightness and unequivocal stance. She gives a larger picture of the artist as an individual, a symbol of China’s oppression, and a powerful voice against a country that still denies its citizens many basic freedoms.

Award Winner
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance - K.Y.