Release Ai Weiwei—An Overseas Chinese Perspective
Love the Future — Chinese Consulate, New York City, April 2011. ‘Love the Future’ is a code for ‘Ai Weiwei,’ an innovation springing from censorship in China, where the results of internet searches for Ai’s name are are censored.
As previously stated on this blog, arts institutions and concerned citizens are calling for the release of artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained by Chinese authorities.
Ai’s whereabouts are still unknown. According to FreeAiWeiwei.org, today marks the 22nd day since Ai disappeared.
Readers seeking additional perspectives might see “Release Ai WeiWei: An Overseas Chinese Perspective,” an op-ed I posted on New America Media.
Shirin Sadeghi interviewed me about it for New America Media Radio. You can listen to the segment as an MP3 here.
Comments (4)
I created a poster in solidarity: http://bit.ly/lzZWV9
I created a poster in support: http://bit.ly/mAo0ao
When artists leave the safety of aesthetics, their ideas can be dangerous…
I blogged about Ai Weiwei. I told our staff liaison that I was going to speak out during oral communications at our Palo Alto Public Art Commission about the situation, to get on record that what happened there was felt here, but ended up speaking about Bruce Beasley (who are PAPAC has commissioned) instead. I actually spoke to Bruce Beasley on this topic — AWW — because Bruce contributed a piece of art to the Beijing Olympics exposition. I signed an online petition at Change dot org. Not sure what else to do (and certainly realize that my blog posts are not influential, few people see my posts) but feel compelled to do something. Posting here in the same spirit. Not familiar with the author, but will listen to the MP3 inked.