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China's culture and history are closely related to my living environment. This country is my birthplace. It is also where I grew up. Its culture and history shape my relations with family, friends, society, and daily life.

Ai Weiwei

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Ai Weiwei
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 18
Architect
Consultant
Contemporary Artist
Designer
Film Director
Human Rights Activist
Painter
Photographer
Sculptor
Social Activist
Peking
Wei-wei Ai
Weiwei Ai
Ai Wei Wei
Family
Daily
Living
Relation
History
China
Culture
Shapes
Birthplace
Also
Grew
Closely
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Environment
Relations
Life
Friends
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More quotes by Ai Weiwei

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I don't believe in the so-called Olympic spirit. I speak from personal experience. When China hosted the Games, it failed to include the people. The event was constructed without regard for their joy.
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I spend a lot of time talking to journalists.
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In China, we don't have any contemporary art museums. Until a few years ago, we didn't even have a gallery.
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I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn't move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.
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Maybe [success] is because I'm in China and I'm more open. Maybe it's my independent behavior, or because I participated in certain projects. I have no idea.
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...photographs are facts, but not necessarily true... The present always surpasses the past, and the future will not care about today.
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Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.
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To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It's a very complicated process to do large projects. You start to see the society, how it functions, how it works. Then you have a lot of criticism about how it works.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart...
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What counts in the end is what the government does.
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Because Chinese art is booming, it legitimizes this profession.
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A historical property has morals and ethics of the society that created it and it can be revived. What I mean is that we can discover new possibilities from the process of dismantling, transforming, and recreating.
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I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.
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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.
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In an environment without public platform nor protection, the individual is the most powerful and most responsible.
Ai Weiwei
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Twitter is the people’s tool, the tool of the ordinary people, people who have no other resources.
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I don't like China. Even today, I still feel I have no emotional relations with this place.
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Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.
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The freedom of speech is an important yardstick for a society's level of civilization.
Ai Weiwei