Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist and activist, has spoken about his first visit to China in over a decade, describing the experience as 'a piece of jade broken that you can put back together'. The 68-year-old, who was detained in 2011 and later exiled, returned with his son to see his elderly mother. He said he was not scared, despite his history of being jailed and threatened by the Chinese state.
Ai's new book, On Censorship, is a 90-page polemic on state control, AI and surveillance. He argues that the West misunderstands censorship, defining it as 'the exercise of power over intellectual space'. He warns that liberal societies are not immune, saying 'even on sunny days, shadows are inevitable'.
The book includes a reference to a selfie Ai took with AfD leader Alice Weidel in 2018, which AI allegedly deemed fake due to their political differences. Ai defends the image, saying Weidel is 'more rational than other political opponents in Germany'.
Ai's upcoming work at Aviva Studios in Manchester involves 30 tonnes of buttons, saved from a London factory and turned into hanging artworks in China. He currently divides his time between Lisbon, Berlin and Cambridge.
