Speaker 1: I remember fondly visiting you in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: at your studio in Beijing, and then again in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. A lot has happened since then. Yes,
Speaker 1: since then, I always have been waiting for you to
Speaker 1: come back, but they'll never come back to you now.
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, This is Martha Stewart and welcome to our
Speaker 1: podcast today. I am so excited because we are talking
Speaker 1: by zoom to one of the most extraordinary human beings alive,
Speaker 1: by Way Way. Ei Way Way is world famous. He
Speaker 1: is an amazing person involved in civil liberties and human
Speaker 1: rights and very very very outspoken about in human treatment.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give a big long introduction because
Speaker 1: Ai Wei Way himself has so much to say, and
Speaker 1: I just want to say Hi, Hiwayway, Hello, So nice
Speaker 1: to see you again. I have been back to China
Speaker 1: once since two thousand and fourteen. My two grandchildren, Jude
Speaker 1: and Truman, are studying and are quite fluent in Mandarin
Speaker 1: right now, so I took them to China in two
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty right and we were there in January,
Speaker 1: right before COVID. The last thing we did in China
Speaker 1: was to ice skate on the Imperial Palace Lake and
Speaker 1: they had such a good time. They opened it. That
Speaker 1: day was like January five. They opened the ice was perfect.
Speaker 1: We were the first people to ice skate on that
Speaker 1: lake and we and I thought of you. I thought
Speaker 1: of you and wished that you were there. You were
Speaker 1: not there because you had already I think, left China.
Speaker 1: Right when did you leave China? Well, I left twos
Speaker 1: on the fifteen, two thousand twenty, was already in Germany,
Speaker 1: in Berlin. And I want to get into the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of why you had to leave your homeland. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've had you've had a rough time in that homeland,
Speaker 1: and yet you have become one of the most famous
Speaker 1: Chinese people ever. Had so much happened, and I hope
Speaker 1: that maybe you could tell us a little bit more
Speaker 1: about about your time early years in China, when you
Speaker 1: were your whole family was exiled, and then in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, I guess when you were put in prison.
Speaker 1: One of the most famous Chinese people put in prison
Speaker 1: by the government. And I just want to know why
Speaker 1: why were you first exiled in the first place with
Speaker 1: your family? Well, my father was the point. It's the
Speaker 1: most one on modern poet for China. His name was
Speaker 1: I Ching, right, I Chin. His book just published by
Speaker 1: random House. U you know, I King select boy three
Speaker 1: and he is one of the revolutionary poet and it
Speaker 1: was it's the first generation of the Leader's chairman or
Speaker 1: drawing line. They were in year and struggling and the
Speaker 1: later they established the new Nation nine in forty nine.
Speaker 1: So he's uh, he's thinking are quite different or made
Speaker 1: the leaders happy. He's not an even anti communist, his
Speaker 1: communist himself, but he just there's different opinions or the
Speaker 1: different attitude that is not allowed in in the Communist party.
Speaker 1: So he was criticized as the rightist and the exiled
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifty seven, which is a year I
Speaker 1: was born. So since I was born, I was with
Speaker 1: him in the so called re education camp in in
Speaker 1: very removed the area in Xinjia. And nobody knows that
Speaker 1: kind of treatment can last of forever, and nobody knows
Speaker 1: twenty years we spent time in exile and the condition
Speaker 1: living conditions is un unspeakable. You know, it's not nothing
Speaker 1: we have today we can we have that time, you know,
Speaker 1: we are we're living a dig digaut underground and there's
Speaker 1: no water almost like uh like animal almost, But we
Speaker 1: did survive to n one. I had a chance to
Speaker 1: come to the United States, so I spent about twelve
Speaker 1: years in the United States. By nineteen three, I went
Speaker 1: back to see my father after twelve years havn't seen him.
Speaker 1: And yeah, then ten really passed very fast. I spent
Speaker 1: another thirty two years in China until two thousand fifteen.
Speaker 1: I kind of being forced off after two southly eleven.
Speaker 1: I was arrested because my online activities basically some kind
Speaker 1: of criticism with action. So I organize people to investigate
Speaker 1: the government. It's around doings, which nobody would like something
Speaker 1: like that in in any authoritarian society. So I I
Speaker 1: kind of went too far and they don't like it.
Speaker 1: They have to find a way to censor my voice
Speaker 1: under to to smear my action, and to put me
Speaker 1: in jail behind bars too, you know, just trying to
Speaker 1: scare people. And yeah, that's basically the story. You spent
Speaker 1: eighty one days in prison? Can you describe the prison
Speaker 1: for us? Yes, I spent eighty one days in Sacred detention.
Speaker 1: It's not even a prison, it's a location nobody knows
Speaker 1: where they are, and I was blindforded to take me
Speaker 1: into that location. And the whole time I was guarded
Speaker 1: by military police and nobody knows where I just disappeared
Speaker 1: from the public. My mom doesn't know. I couldn't have
Speaker 1: a lawyer, and the daily I would go through these
Speaker 1: kind of interrogations, which mostly a nonsense. You know, it's
Speaker 1: what they're trying to interrogate from an artists. Only because
Speaker 1: I openly criticize them. Did they ask for an apology?
Speaker 1: They asked me to admit the kind of crime, and
Speaker 1: I'm really made uh, But I always tell them we
Speaker 1: need a trial to you know, open trials, so I
Speaker 1: need a lawyer to to I even need some kind
Speaker 1: of procedure to recognize the kind of crime they are
Speaker 1: accusing me. But of course later I realized they just
Speaker 1: trying to use these kind of tactics to trying to
Speaker 1: scare me. And also they made the television recording, but
Speaker 1: later they didn't use it. It's supposed to popular, uh
Speaker 1: you know, to to publicize to international television maybe my
Speaker 1: way of a talk about sens which doesn't really make
Speaker 1: not qualified. So yeah, they made them some kind of
Speaker 1: public television recording. What what were the conditions like, did
Speaker 1: you have a bed to sleep on or were you
Speaker 1: in a room by yourself? The room is very small
Speaker 1: and I just have one bed under one chair. I
Speaker 1: have to sit down the chair and put my hands
Speaker 1: on my my my lap and standing sitting there very
Speaker 1: still a cannomal any action. I would take the first
Speaker 1: report to them to say I have to go to toilet.
Speaker 1: Then they have to give me admission for me to
Speaker 1: do and the two soldiers will walk me into the bathroom,
Speaker 1: and that they were standing on side of me to
Speaker 1: watch me to do whatever I have to do in
Speaker 1: the bathroom, and the twenty four hours will be two soldiers.
Speaker 1: They're shifting every hour to watch me. And even when sleep,
Speaker 1: they're standing right on the side of my bed. The
Speaker 1: light is always on and they are watching me if
Speaker 1: I really fall into sleep. Were you ever allowed outside
Speaker 1: during that eighty one days? No, they are creating a
Speaker 1: world to make you believe there's nothing outside. The whole
Speaker 1: universe is that room. And the after a few days,
Speaker 1: you would also believe that you're totally cut off. You
Speaker 1: don't believe the people outside still remembers you, or the
Speaker 1: question where you are you know there they have very
Speaker 1: good psychological some kind of special treatment, make you believe
Speaker 1: you're in their hands and there's no way you can
Speaker 1: there's no outside. You know, they don't have any kind
Speaker 1: of physical violence, but mainly it's a psychological vilements because
Speaker 1: you have to do everything according to their schedule. And
Speaker 1: you see, they will say you can't walk now you're
Speaker 1: walk in the room on six tails and you walk
Speaker 1: forward and turn, walking back and turn. So you have
Speaker 1: to do hours of this kind of walking, very much
Speaker 1: like a military type of walking. And so they would
Speaker 1: ask you the folding your bed into some kind of
Speaker 1: perfect cube or take maybe monsters to learn how to
Speaker 1: to make that just like knife cut shop corners. And
Speaker 1: you know it's kind of military ridiculous training. Wow, that
Speaker 1: is harsh. And what kind of food did they feed you?
Speaker 1: The food was okay, you know they try the basic
Speaker 1: The tactics they have is too if their words is
Speaker 1: to protect you, so protect you to to suicide or
Speaker 1: protect you to hurt yourself before they make some major decisions.
Speaker 1: So you are basically highly protect. There's a civilian cameras
Speaker 1: uh in in several corners of the room under these
Speaker 1: people in the next room, watching exactly you're every of
Speaker 1: your movement, even your eye blinks, they can know. They
Speaker 1: can blow it up to see what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1: It's kind of very I would say, unique treatment. The
Speaker 1: doctor would come in every day to measure your blood
Speaker 1: pleasure and and you appeals. You have to eat in
Speaker 1: front of them. You have to open your mouth. They
Speaker 1: wouldn't look at you swallowen the appeals. You know, they
Speaker 1: will make sure you did all the procedure. And you
Speaker 1: didn't know what the pills were, so you just had
Speaker 1: to take them anyway you have to take. It is
Speaker 1: about Otter, and I assume it's something good for you,
Speaker 1: because they are really scared you're you're going to have
Speaker 1: some problem. Now. We heard that you were incarcerated because
Speaker 1: of tax evasion. All kinds of rumors came out of
Speaker 1: China at that time. We were all so worried for you.
Speaker 1: You know, so many of us thought about you. People
Speaker 1: who admit you or just admired your your amazing work,
Speaker 1: were worried about you, and and we wondered how you
Speaker 1: were faring, and we couldn't write to you. Actually, I
Speaker 1: also worried it's not a worry that I have any
Speaker 1: kind of crime. I'm worried. It's my kind voice. Many
Speaker 1: people being sentenced over fifteen thirteen years, that's very normal.
Speaker 1: I know many people has been put away, So with
Speaker 1: my activity, I can easily be put away like that,
Speaker 1: and I would have no chance to really see my son,
Speaker 1: how he would grow up. He was only two years old.
Speaker 1: And the one I was arrested and the interrogator tells me,
Speaker 1: you know, even when you're released, yourseln never recognized you.
Speaker 1: Under They're very they're very quite honest. They said, after
Speaker 1: two years you're finished. You're still will be still alive,
Speaker 1: but you're not the same person anymore. So we see
Speaker 1: too many people like that. So I never worried about
Speaker 1: accusation of my crime. I never did any crime, and
Speaker 1: as they also know that. But of course I don't
Speaker 1: know if anybody would make some kind of voice for me.
Speaker 1: And later found out a lot of people are supporting me.
Speaker 1: Of course, so many, so many people supported you, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's a it's a hard harsh treatment for
Speaker 1: being an outspoken person in a authoritarian country. That's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very very difficult. So many countries in the world
Speaker 1: are are going in that direction. Now, what do you
Speaker 1: think of that? I would think history always uh teachers lessons,
Speaker 1: I would say, and you know, not obviously right or
Speaker 1: obviously justice, idea can can be easily achieved. Is always struggle,
Speaker 1: is always struggle, and that maybe for too long we
Speaker 1: take the liberty and too easy, and we think liberty
Speaker 1: can be basal struggle or democracy baslf struggle, which is
Speaker 1: not true. I take every generation, every individual, to defending
Speaker 1: the human dignity and to defending what we believes, and
Speaker 1: that should be a normal condition, and we for too
Speaker 1: long we forget about it. You know, it just either
Speaker 1: everybody to act on that. It was nine eleven in
Speaker 1: the United States. I was such a happy person up
Speaker 1: until nine eleven when we suffered the World Trade Center disaster,
Speaker 1: and and I thought, you know, I've never been afraid
Speaker 1: in my life, and here we go. I was afraid
Speaker 1: for the first time. I had to walk down the
Speaker 1: streets of New Yorker City that I really loved, and
Speaker 1: I had to look up every day to make sure
Speaker 1: nothing was going to happen. And then we had an
Speaker 1: election of a man who really changed or at least
Speaker 1: brought to the forefront, a very very fractured America, and
Speaker 1: we're all thinking, now, gosh, our country is not the
Speaker 1: same country it was or that we hoped it would be.
Speaker 1: And so we're living through a lot of what other
Speaker 1: countries in the world are living through. I never thought
Speaker 1: we would see it so clearly, but we are having
Speaker 1: a very hard time in the United States right now.
Speaker 1: Do you agree with me that what's going on is
Speaker 1: really sad and dangerous. I think what we see America,
Speaker 1: we also have to put in the into the world map,
Speaker 1: and you seeing the world changed dramatically with the Russian
Speaker 1: invasion to Ukraine, with China's fast development, and also China
Speaker 1: has a long strategy trying to make it much more
Speaker 1: stronger dominant the world in every aspect. So you'll see
Speaker 1: American still struggling with many, many, very fundamental issues of
Speaker 1: a human rights and many many issues seems almost like unsolvable.
Speaker 1: So the whole political institution of the world is really changing.
Speaker 1: It's not a likely in the seventies, eighties or nineties
Speaker 1: we are still living a much peaceful time. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very different world. And to me, I
Speaker 1: do a lot of business in China, we manufacture many
Speaker 1: many of our products in China, and China has the
Speaker 1: upper hand. I really admired the growth and the extraordinary
Speaker 1: innovation of China. But I worry, as you worried, and
Speaker 1: as you paid dearly for the authoritarian nature of the government.
Speaker 1: And we're just in a very very strange state right now.
Speaker 1: And I and this whole thing with the Ukraine, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, is just devastatingly sad. And do you see
Speaker 1: that there in England too? Do you get the news? Yes,
Speaker 1: of course we The problem is everything happening in front
Speaker 1: of us, and we we can get all the informations
Speaker 1: at the same time. And I want to make us
Speaker 1: feel powerless, you know, we feel almost like impossible to
Speaker 1: to do something to help the situation. But still we
Speaker 1: have to understand all the power has to come back
Speaker 1: to individuals and the world doesn't matter where it goes.
Speaker 1: I have to benefit each individual and so so I
Speaker 1: take the individual too to act, and the two to
Speaker 1: tell people how do you think and and clearly and
Speaker 1: also to honestly reflects those feelings it is your expression,
Speaker 1: and to communicate, so to make sure they are really
Speaker 1: very responsibility for whatever happens in the world your exhibits
Speaker 1: that you have created, so many amazing, amazing exhibits. So,
Speaker 1: for example, your sunflower seeds. I have my fourteen seeds
Speaker 1: that you gave me either way way, can you hear them?
Speaker 1: These are your seeds that you gave me from I.
Speaker 1: Of course I still have them there, my precious seeds.
Speaker 1: I think about you when I look at them, each
Speaker 1: seed hand crafted out of porcelain and hand painted by
Speaker 1: How many people did it take to make a hundred
Speaker 1: million of these porcelain seeds? It picked up all the
Speaker 1: one souls and six hundred people working for seven hundred days, wow,
Speaker 1: to make all the and and how much did they
Speaker 1: weigh when you finally finished making a hundred million seeds?
Speaker 1: What did that pile of seeds weigh? What? It's about
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty tents tons? Oh my gosh. So so
Speaker 1: a ton of everybody is two thousand pounds. That's a
Speaker 1: big pile of porcelain. And you exhibited them first at
Speaker 1: the Tate Gallery in London. Yes, and the show be
Speaker 1: in the Turban Hall in Pig Gallery. I read that
Speaker 1: you were in the Originally I saw it, but I
Speaker 1: didn't walk in it. I think it was closed off
Speaker 1: to walking when I finally got to see it, but
Speaker 1: people were allowed originally to walk on the seeds. What
Speaker 1: was your message, Well, I want to make something very small.
Speaker 1: It looks quite fragile, and but it takes a complicated
Speaker 1: message to make it, to like make the highest porcelain
Speaker 1: pieces and take about twenty different procedures to to really
Speaker 1: make one. But everything handmade. It looked exactly the same,
Speaker 1: but none of them can can be identical lead to another.
Speaker 1: It's not the same because they all hand depended by once,
Speaker 1: all six hundred women, day by day. And you know,
Speaker 1: so that is uh fascinating, and I think, and it
Speaker 1: looks like an ocean, but none none of those pieces
Speaker 1: are the same. Incredible, So that's an exhibit. Then you
Speaker 1: did the Forever Bicycles another exhibit in two thousand and seventeen.
Speaker 1: Tell us about what the what the twelve D twelve
Speaker 1: D bicycles or hundred bicycles. There are several times being
Speaker 1: exhibited from maybe twelve hundred to five thousand. You know,
Speaker 1: this is several version. I went to the exhibit. I
Speaker 1: have a picture here of me at the Hershorn Museum
Speaker 1: in Washington that was Yeah, that was two thousand and thirteen.
Speaker 1: That was a beautiful exhibit though, thank you. And so
Speaker 1: what was the message for the bicycles, Well, bicycle is
Speaker 1: something awful everyday objects has already made one. We grew up.
Speaker 1: We see bicycles as very luxuries. If you can't have
Speaker 1: a bicycle the time I was working in the field,
Speaker 1: you have to walk very far away in the desert,
Speaker 1: and you know it's not possible to to you know,
Speaker 1: scorby desert. You don't have drop over water and there's
Speaker 1: no no trees, so it's no shadow you under the sound.
Speaker 1: So we always dream to a fault bike. And then
Speaker 1: your river crabs thirty two hundred little porcelain red crabs,
Speaker 1: reddish and orangesh crabs. What was that about. Well, river
Speaker 1: crabs in Chinese have the same name with the color
Speaker 1: hormonoous society. Yeah, that means the government sink that society
Speaker 1: has to be unified or peaceful. You know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of propaganda. And so it's kind of pond because it
Speaker 1: sounded the same chis it means the same. So I
Speaker 1: used that as some kind of irony or two as
Speaker 1: a humor, and everybody online in China understand what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. And then you did the chairs in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, a thousand and one beautiful, beautiful um
Speaker 1: Chinese antique chairs. What was that about. That's about the
Speaker 1: chairs and the chairs is uh as part of our tradition.
Speaker 1: Chairs is not as functional as some kind of furniture,
Speaker 1: but the rather reflections of Chinese understanding of our society
Speaker 1: about family, about this kind of moral or ritual aspect.
Speaker 1: So but in the modern days, all those a disappeared,
Speaker 1: destroyed people only have a plastic chairs. They you can
Speaker 1: buy a plastic chair in exchange for the antique chairs
Speaker 1: because antipachers that they're always losing our shaking and it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like flashy and but a plastic chair looks
Speaker 1: much better. So so you know, the whole society had changed.
Speaker 1: The values, the judgment and the tradition disappeared. So that's
Speaker 1: why I collects antiques and to try and to learn
Speaker 1: from those uh, those older objects or elements. I had
Speaker 1: a I have a good friend literally may Pay, who
Speaker 1: lives here in the United States. She comes from Western China,
Speaker 1: UM and she told me a lot about the struction
Speaker 1: of the antiquities during the revolution and how sad it was.
Speaker 1: And so she when there's a garage sale or or
Speaker 1: an estate sale, she goes to find old Chinese things
Speaker 1: to buy because she values them so much she remembers
Speaker 1: them from her childhood. And then everything sort of disappeared
Speaker 1: and became the plastic chair, and she really admires the
Speaker 1: old workmanship and the old and they and they value.
Speaker 1: So is does that have something to do with all
Speaker 1: of that? Oh? Yes, we are. We are being cut
Speaker 1: about from our own memory, you know, tradition. It's about
Speaker 1: part of our memory, about our identity to a center
Speaker 1: where they come from. And that that is probably the
Speaker 1: worst condition. While I'm being cut off format your memory,
Speaker 1: so you'll get lost who you are and you don't
Speaker 1: know where you come from. So too for me, that's
Speaker 1: a struggle to to leave on the memory under to
Speaker 1: be too to discover or memories. So do you think
Speaker 1: a lot of people who have left China read Chinese
Speaker 1: history and try to reassimilate their whole background into the
Speaker 1: real history. Well, it's it's extremely difficult because the history
Speaker 1: always been rewriting by the modern time, and the China
Speaker 1: basins is kind of highly as Subtorian society. A censorshipe
Speaker 1: under under changes that the lines and tombs in the history,
Speaker 1: so it's very hard to get a real, so called
Speaker 1: honest or or special view about what happened in the past.
Speaker 1: Is there any history book way way that you could
Speaker 1: recommend in English for our listeners to read that you
Speaker 1: think does depict the history in a in an accurate fashion.
Speaker 1: There's a Every history writer have their own perspective, but
Speaker 1: it's always nice to to say that perspective are very
Speaker 1: clear and also it's some kind of historical record or proof.
Speaker 1: So recently I'm reading a book called The Silk Road,
Speaker 1: which is by British and American writer Robert and the
Speaker 1: Silk Road as a a very interesting writing in in
Speaker 1: re talk about the world history from different perspective. Silk Road.
Speaker 1: So everyone look up the book Silk Road and take
Speaker 1: take away ways recommendation. What about the zodiac heads? When
Speaker 1: I saw those zodiac heads in New York around the
Speaker 1: fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, I was just entranced.
Speaker 1: What's the history of that of those particular fantastic zodiac
Speaker 1: heads that have animals representing the twelve months. Well, those
Speaker 1: animal has zodiacs. I was seeing Ching dynasty in the
Speaker 1: in the palace of the King Emperor till French and
Speaker 1: British soldiers looted them and a since then disappeared. But
Speaker 1: in the recent years about seven of the twelve great
Speaker 1: really appeared in the market. So Chinese government encourage people
Speaker 1: to buying it back to us. Uh, some kind of
Speaker 1: patriotic act, which is a questionable because those rudias are
Speaker 1: made for Manchu people. Who is in inventor of China
Speaker 1: is not the invader or of China, so I think
Speaker 1: that is quite ironic. I made I fixed the one
Speaker 1: who is never been found, which are five of them,
Speaker 1: so combined with the other sevens as we have a
Speaker 1: complete zodiac cat So first time I it's been showing
Speaker 1: in the a little fountain in front of Plaza Plaza hotel.
Speaker 1: Right that time I am still in the in the detention,
Speaker 1: so I completely have no idea those it's going to
Speaker 1: be showing, and uh, yeah, it's being showed under the
Speaker 1: Mayor Broomberg also give open pulp about me and about
Speaker 1: the work, which I think is quitey impressive. It was wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful Mayor Bloomberg did an incredible job of of letting
Speaker 1: us see your work firsthand. It was amazing. And those
Speaker 1: are ten foot tall? Where are they now? Where? How
Speaker 1: many sets did you make? They are? One set of
Speaker 1: them is seeing Lacoma in the Los Angeles Museum. They
Speaker 1: permanently collect that, so anybody wants see it, they should
Speaker 1: go to LACMA in Los Angeles. And uh, I still
Speaker 1: have more exhibits that. I'm so interested in the Olympic
Speaker 1: Stadium in two thousand and eight, the Bird's Nest, which
Speaker 1: I went to see when it was still under construction,
Speaker 1: and you collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog and demoron. What
Speaker 1: was that collaboration like And was the conception of a
Speaker 1: bird's nest? What? What's the idea there? Well, it's uh,
Speaker 1: they hurst them around. They teamed with me because they
Speaker 1: know not much about Tiness culture and they know I'm
Speaker 1: very interesting architecture and the art. So they come out
Speaker 1: this uh concept for the competition. Under they win the competition,
Speaker 1: then the whole architecture Burnest is trying to reflect this
Speaker 1: kind of openness and the bondness about the modern society.
Speaker 1: And of course, uh, you know later being used for
Speaker 1: different other purpose. You know, it become a strong propaganda
Speaker 1: element for the party. But our decline for the architecture,
Speaker 1: I think it's very very strong and very beautiful. It is.
Speaker 1: It is such a beautiful stadium. Did and it worked
Speaker 1: very well too. Yes, and now you're doing documentaries. A
Speaker 1: documentary was just was just shown at a festival in England.
Speaker 1: Is that true yours truly? There's a documentary about my
Speaker 1: art projects, your truth yours truly showing in this musical
Speaker 1: festival in England. Yes, the film is about the show.
Speaker 1: In a contrast, it's about how to write postcard to
Speaker 1: those political prisoners all over the world. Hundred seventies six
Speaker 1: of them, and of course some of them are already
Speaker 1: released on most of them are still in jail. Wow,
Speaker 1: so we we know how many of there are are?
Speaker 1: Do you think there are more than that? There's a
Speaker 1: hundred times that we don't know there only know some
Speaker 1: noticeable one. Most of them not will be forgotten or
Speaker 1: never would come to the public attention. Are you working
Speaker 1: on a on a new work now that we should
Speaker 1: be anticipating. Uh, well, I'm artists, you know, I am
Speaker 1: a self employed I always work. I don't have vacation.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but there's nothing I have to do. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just some kind of self motivation or you know, well,
Speaker 1: you you work in such big numbers for many of
Speaker 1: your exhibits. Is there is there something that you're collecting
Speaker 1: now or or creating now that have you been commissioned
Speaker 1: by another museum somewhere that we should we should know about.
Speaker 1: They are not announced, so I cannot announced it. But yes,
Speaker 1: there's always had me. Well, we're always looking forward to
Speaker 1: um anything that I way way does, and we're just
Speaker 1: so proud of to know you and so so happy
Speaker 1: that you are obviously thriving living in a community where
Speaker 1: you can not only teach and influence but also survive.
Speaker 1: Do you have any hopes of ever going back to China? Yes,
Speaker 1: every day I want to go back, but still we
Speaker 1: have to wait when the situation become more clear. You know,
Speaker 1: I kind as my country and I care about it
Speaker 1: and know so many and nice sense happening in China.
Speaker 1: But of course, uh, I don't want to be putting
Speaker 1: in some kind of disappeared Again, that's not a very
Speaker 1: good solution for that. Is your studio still there? The
Speaker 1: one I visited. I have a student in painting. Yes,
Speaker 1: we had also read that a studio of yours in
Speaker 1: in Shanghai or somewhere else was destroyed. Is that true not?
Speaker 1: It's true in Shanghai and also invaging part of my
Speaker 1: studio destroyed. But that's why our normal kind of destroys
Speaker 1: many since and they also reviewed the many sense, so
Speaker 1: you know it's for something in China is not a
Speaker 1: big deal. I It's just so incredible what you have
Speaker 1: done and what you have taught us. And I'm just
Speaker 1: so pleased to have major acquaintance several times and to
Speaker 1: be able to talk to you so intensely about what's
Speaker 1: going on with you. You know, we have a lot
Speaker 1: of similarities. Food is one. Of course, you cooked me
Speaker 1: lunch twice and I I still owe you lunch at
Speaker 1: my house to eat from my garden. And I hope
Speaker 1: someday you come to the United States and have lunch
Speaker 1: here at my farm because I would love to do that.
Speaker 1: You also love cats as much as I do. Do
Speaker 1: you have any cats there in Cambridge? Have a too
Speaker 1: cast in Cambridge and I'll have a new location you
Speaker 1: in discipline in their Apple eight pass. And then we
Speaker 1: also have prison in common. I hate to bring up
Speaker 1: my prison because it was like it was like a
Speaker 1: going away to a children's camp compared to what you
Speaker 1: had to go through. But incarceration is hideous, enforced incarce incarceration,
Speaker 1: And I just want to say that that you have
Speaker 1: survived your your tormentors very very well ey way Way,
Speaker 1: and I'm very proud of you. It's a horrible thing
Speaker 1: to be incarcerated. And America has to revisit their penis
Speaker 1: is them as so many countries have to, because it's
Speaker 1: just sometimes and many times a very unfair way to
Speaker 1: treat humans. And you're an artist, and I think I'm
Speaker 1: an artist, and you're outspoken, and I think I'm outspoken.
Speaker 1: I'm not outspoken enough, but someday I'll be able to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more outspoken, I hope. But you
Speaker 1: have You are brave and courageous and uh and really admirable.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for speaking with me today and
Speaker 1: um and I hope we get to meet again sometime
Speaker 1: in the near future, and good luck with all your
Speaker 1: new work. I hope that I'll come to see you
Speaker 1: and there it will be the best reason to come
Speaker 1: to New York, thank you,