Culture

Since April 3, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has been detained by the Chinese authorities for “economic crimes”. Given his international fame and robust charisma he seemed inviolable, but perhaps that was the point of detaining him: to stamp out the idea that any individual is greater than the law of the state. Weiwei has enjoyed considerable success for both his political stances and his intimate art installations. His Sunflower Seeds (2010) installation at the Tate Modern investigated the geo-politics of cultural and political exchange. The work consists of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds, each identical and yet individual. To begin with, viewers could walk amongst the installation but they can no longer do so as the dust produced from the work poses a health and safety risk. Like the viewer walking over the plains of sunflower seeds, squashing the seeds as they go, the Chinese government has squashed Ai Weiwei’s right to speak freely as an artist.
There are two perspectives in evaluating this; the current political climate in China and the Western media and governments’ treatment of the situation. It is difficult to succinctly decide who is right and who is wrong, and additionally, if I’m on the side of the Ai Weiwei “camp” or whether I am simply disgusted with media portrayal of Weiwei’s detainment. When an artist and their work are extremely political, I think it is essential for them to have absolute freedom of expression so Weiwei’s detainment upsets me immensely. Due to heavy censorship within China, it is difficult to evaluate to what extent his human rights have been violated. Similarly the fact that Weiwei lives and works in a country which limits its citizens access to the internet, and which holds a monopoly over media coverage, contributes to the problem of his work being relatively unknown within China. This can be linked to the broader issue of censorship, a problem that the Chinese government needs to amend. As Weiwei put it an featured in the Guardian, “China is a nation that still has very limited freedom of speech and access to information and which does not have public elections for its own leaders or an independent judicial system. When you have strict censorship of the internet, young students cannot receive a full education. Their view of the world is imbalanced. There can be no true discussion of the issues”.

However, Western media coverage of Weiwei’s detainment is disproportionate to the current situation of ordinary people of China. Weiwei is high profile because he is outspoken and well-connected outside of China; most of the ordinary people inside China do not know who Weiwei is or know anything about his work. He has taken it upon himself to speak for them. The average person living in China would prefer to see progressive change and the emergence of pragmatic policies, which is not as dramatic as the kind of government changes Weiwei envisions. This is evident by the gradual way in which China is increasingly becoming “westernised” by means of rapid industrial and technological development. This is due largely to the economic reforms (centralised economic planning) in China in the 1980s. Previously Weiwei has called for immediate changes through Western interference.
 
The current media fixation upon Weiwei is not because he represents a Chinese ideal, but because he represents our ideal of what the average Chinese dissident should be. Ai Weiwei’s detainment is not as black and white as the media coverage bandwagon is portraying.