Sunday Pick: Ai Weiwei | Design Matters

0:06Happy Sunday. I'm Elise Hu. Today we have another Sunday pick episode where we share another podcast from the TED Audio Collective handpicked by us for you. Internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is well known for his sculptures and films, as well as his unrelenting activism and open criticism of human rights abuses in China and beyond. In this beloved episode of Design Matters from 2021, Ai Weiwei sits down with host Debbie Millman to discuss his memoir, 1 ,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows, depicting a century-long epic tale of China told through the story of his family, including his arrest in 2011 and eventual exile from China in 2015.

0:50He and Debbie discuss his views on social change, power, and his hopes for the future. You can find episodes of Design Matters wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about the TED Audio Collective at audiocollective.ted.com.

1:07This archival episode of Design Matters originally dropped in November of 2021. Writing is difficult, but to do art is just too easy for me to do it. So I cannot even compare this to...

1:28From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. For 17 years, Debbie Millman has been talking with designers and other creative people about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On November 10th, 2021, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in front of a live audience, Debbie spoke with artist and political gadfly Ai Weiwei. They talked about his family, his art, and his new memoir, 1 ,000 Years of Joy and Sorrow. That's coming up after the break. I'm really excited to introduce you to a new podcast that I am loving.

2:10It is from one of my favorite places on Earth, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show is titled Immaterial, 5 ,000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time. Hosted by Camille Dungy, each episode examines a material of art, clay, stone, trash, and even intangible things like space. You'll gain a deep understanding of what these materials make us feel and reveal about our history and our humanity. You'll also get a sense of the meaningfulness of these materials in art and how to see them in a whole new way. To listen to Immaterial, just search for Immaterial in your favorite podcast app. That's Immaterial, 5 ,000 years of art, one material at a time.

3:01I love this show, and I think you will too.

3:20Wei Wei, I understand that you're quite a good blackjack player. I used to be good. When I was pretty poor, I was pretty good. I found out that on blackjackchamp.com, you are regarded in gambling circles as a top-tier professional player. Well, I use that to relax myself and also kill some time. It's pretty strange if you're traveling, you go to a city, you know, nobody, and you stay in a very strange hotel, and sometimes you think about gambling. Wei Wei your remarkable new memoir one thousand years of joys and sorrows is a century-long epic tale of China told through the story of your family and you begin the book by recounting the events that occurred on April 3rd 2011 as you were about to fly out of Beijing's capital airport There, a swarm of police descended on you, put a hood over your head, and imprisoned you in a detention center.

4:50For the next 81 days, no one knew where you were or if you were even alive. At the time of the arrest, did you have any idea what crime you were being accused of? First, I feel I'm very safe because I'm at the hand of this nation. You know, I've become kidnapped by the government, so I feel safe. And, yeah, I'm always wondering how my mom will think about me or other friends because they simply have no clue where this guy suddenly disappeared. I was quite noisy before I got disappeared. Noisy in what way? Well, I just keep talking online. You know, I write a few posts a day. It could be long articles and make a lot of argument.

5:51So suddenly my disappearance created a volume, you know, which is empty. So everybody asked, where is this guy? During this time, you were subjected to psychological torture. You were held captive in a 280 square foot room. Two armed guards surrounded you and monitored every move that you made. They watched you eat, sleep, shower, defecate. And if that weren't torture enough, they also timed every one of these activities, which meant if you showered too quickly, you had to stand naked and wet before you could dry yourself off and put on your clothes. Is it true you even had to ask permission to scratch your head?

6:47Well, think about that was exactly 10 years ago. So now I kind of miss that time if I ask somebody to watch me taking a shower. It's not an easy thing now. Not the answer I was expecting. Yeah, you know, funny enough, those things happened. But you stated that everything apart from breathing was prohibited while you were in detention. and living didn't seem much different from being dead. How did you manage this psychologically at the time? I guess I still have a lot of curiosity to see how this condition would lead me to. Because why did they start something like this? how would they, what kind of conclusion they would come to.

7:50So I still, every day, I'm waiting for them to make some kind of decisions because nothing you can do. You're just sitting there and listening to their instructions. But they were closer to you than I am, from what I understand. They were like hovering over you. Standing like each of them are very close, but they're not touching you. They're just staring at you and without even talking, just look at you. It's a very unique experience. You were unwilling to admit to any wrongdoing when you were imprisoned and went as far as to tell your guards that even if they threatened to shoot you, your position and your politics would not change.

8:51Was there any time during those 81 days that you actually thought you might be assassinated? No, I don't think so. You know, nobody would imagine something like that. But certainly I was told I'm going to be sentenced for over 10 years. you know, to be in jail, which is not, I will not see that as a threat, but it could be true. Till today, many of my close friends, they are still serving time in jail. Some are sentenced as lifetime sentence, which they created. and they never had a crime. You know, one of them are university professors. And yes, they are serving time. While you were imprisoned, you thought a lot about your father, Ai Qing, who one year after you were born was imprisoned after Chairman Mao unleashed a political initiative designed to purge artists from China who had criticized the government.

10:08And this included your father, who was one of the most important poets in China. First, he was sent to an icy wilderness in far northeast China. And then, when you were 10, he was banished to a location known as Little Siberia. Where is Little Siberia? Well, this is located in northwest of China. It's probably, if you go further, you'll end up in Pakistan or Russia. It's really at the border of the very remolded province called Xinjiang province, where the Uyghur people today has to be put in the re-education or some kind of labor camps. So they are an attempt to remold people through hard labor.

11:11They don't like those intellectuals. When you don't like someone, you think you should put them as far as possible. So the farthest place is a location. Many, many people have been putting far away. You went to Little Siberia with your father. I grew up in there. I spent about 16 years there. My father spent about 18 years there. Your mother and your little brother did not go to Little Siberia. They did, but they went out for one year, then they come back. As your mother was leaving, you didn't beg her to stay. In your book you stated, I held my tongue, neither saying goodbye nor asking if she was coming back.

12:08You were only 10 years old. Did you think that you were ever going to see her again? I've always been like this. I know there's certain sense beyond any kind of mercy or, you know, there's nothing she can do to help. So why wasting the time? your father was denounced as a bourgeois novelist which was really odd since it was poetry that actually made him famous and his work was considered highly original but it was also really risky and you write about how at the time only pentasyllabic or heptasyllabic rhyming verse in classical Chinese was considered good poetry. How did your father first distribute his work?

13:14At the early time, he was in prison, sentenced for six years. By that time, prison is pretty loose than today. They still can't have a lawyer or still friends can visit him so he can pass his writing to his friend. His friend has also come back from Paris. And they just published his poetry outside the jail. And his pen name, Ai Qing. And later, we all followed his pen name. Can you share how your father came up with his pen name? Well, it's in Chinese it's easier, but he doesn't like the leader that time, Mr. Jiang, you know, and his family name also Mr. Jiang. So if he across the name, it come out the name I, so that's the story.

14:23It's easier if you understand Chinese. though. Yeah. Story of my life. Despite your dad's fame, your father had a really turbulent upbringing. A fortune teller told your, his parents that the newborn child was at odds with their fate. And if they raised him at home, he would be the death of them. So they understood this to mean that the baby should be cared for by others. And they wrapped him, they wrapped your father tightly inside a comforter, embroidered with the words 10 ,000 joys, and sent him to another family to be raised. And he's written quite, quite powerful poetry about these experiences.

15:14Did your father ever feel that he had a home? Well, he had a home, but he was raised by a poorest lady in that village. That lady, in order to breastfeed him, she had to draw a newly born girl to save the milk for him. So she was his wet nurse. Yeah, it's really shocking story, but it's quite common in the old China. And yeah, so he can never call his father, his parents mom and father, but rather to call them uncle and auntie. Even he's the biggest boy in the family. So, you know, when I give a baby later, I really try to find another fortune teller. And, yeah, it may tell me something I will never understand.

16:31When you and your father arrived at Little Siberia, you write about how your life became a course in wilderness survival training. And I want to describe what you were living in for the audience. Your home was a square hole dug into the ground. Your bed was a raised dirt platform covered with wheat stalks with a square hole in the roof to let in light. The paraffin lamp you used inside made your nostrils black with soot. Rats were a constant problem, as were lice. Your dad's job for much of this time was cleaning out communal toilets, which consisted of holes over a cesspit. And you write, in winter, this involved breaking up the frozen feces into manageable pieces and shifting them out of the latrine one by one.

17:34One of China's most famous poets, most talented poets, cleaning a latrine and removing feces. Yet, you said that it was a hard time, but there was also a lot of joy. And I was wondering if you can talk about what that joy was.

17:56Well, life was simple. And you're very clear, you're an enemy of the state. That means you would have no friend. and that makes sense much clearer. And also my father he is always concentrate how to clean those those toilets and which is extremely difficult. He difficult in the summer it's very hot and in the winter is totally frozen. So he have to find a way to manage how to do it and he refuse anybody even want to help him because he think that when a break is a procedure he's just very clear way how he should do it because he always have to focus on this nobody's gonna help him. So it's very difficult if you watch how he worked because he's a poet he never know how to handle physical work.

19:15But he always made those toilets so clean.

19:22Yeah, it's a you even think it's a crime to use that again. It's totally clean. But next day will be the same. It will start again. People. Human nature. Yes. Were you lonely? No, you are if you scared of people you'll never feel lonely. I understand that you have a picture of that home and for a time it was your phone's screensaver yeah but sorry I only can't share with you it's legit thank you your father was forbidden to write for 20 years from the time he was 47 until the time he was 67 some of what could have been the most fertile time of his career. He was not even allowed to touch a pen.

20:28And you stated that for him, writing was as important as life itself. How did he manage? Well, he even tried a few times to suicide.

20:46I guess I never ask that question actually but I suppose it's very difficult because when he visited Paris he was 19 years old he learned art and poetry and he's very idealistic have a high aesthetic judgment but to be punished and to with no reason is absolutely absurd. And so he has to think his life is going to be like that. That is very hard to understand. The first book that he published, he also created the art for the cover. So he was also an artist. And I was wondering if you have memories of the first time that you remember being creative. I never think I have been creative. Really? It's true.

21:52Really? It's true. And even when I play blackjack, I never think I've been creative. You know, it's just, you just do it. Do you remember the first piece of art you ever created? Maybe next year I will do something, but not now. Fair enough. Let's move on. You write about how every time you were ostracized and rejected in Little Siberia, your perspective on society shifted accordingly. And you go on to state that the estrangement and hostility that you encountered instilled in you a clear awareness of who you were. and it shaped your judgment about how social positions are defined. I kind of feel like I know what the answer is going to be to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

22:51Answer it first.

22:56When did it occur to you that you might also want to be an artist? No, I really not. to be very, well, I would not say honest, but, you know, I'm never really honest, but to be frank, I never really want to become an artist. And I become an artist because I think I'm not capable of doing something else. So it was sort of the fallback position. It's true, you can see that. When you were in detention in 2011, you state that at the onset of your being in prison, you were proud of being detained much like your father had been. Why proud? Well, I think first there's something I would never understand about my father, why he has been put in prison.

23:56so until I've been put in the same condition then I said wow this is I can match even I don't understand clearly why I have to be put in the prison but still I think I matched my father that moment was pretty joyful Did you feel like you understood him better in that position at that time? Yeah, we're in very different positions, and I've never been sentenced. Even the state never formally accused me. They just tried to investigate or maybe to intimidate me. You go on to write about how you began to realize that you actually knew very little about your father's ordeal in detention. and despite the many questions you had for him when he was alive, you had never asked them, and you write this in your memoir.

25:00I was stupid. I was not conscious. And now I will never get a solid answer. Weiwei, what do you wish you could have asked him?

25:14I would not ask him if he can play card or something like that. but definitely I would want to know what is in his mind, why he's being punished. And I want to know what is, you know, how he would explain to me about what China is and what kind of system. and so it takes me much longer to find out by writing this book. Did you interview a lot of people that knew him to find answers? I did interview a few like my mom and a few others. There's quite a lot of existing material in study of him So I gave basic information about what he did during his lifetime. Did anything that you found surprise you?

26:22Not much surprise, because it's repeating each other, and you always want to find out what is the truth behind this existing materials. so I asked my mom my mom is very respected now but I said can you ask my father's working unit which everybody belonged to the system and he's in the very high position as head of literature world so he passed away for a few decades now Can you get his personal file? You know, the party kept everybody's file. So my mom said, yeah, that is not bad idea because you're writing this memo. You need to know all the facts. And she applied to higher leader and they clearly told her this is not possible.

27:36Nobody can see those secret files. So... So did you ever really understand what the motivation was for his specific imprisonment? I would... I actually in those files you can see must be some of my father's confession because in every political movement those people who consider us anti-revolutionary they have to repeatedly write about what they did wrong and also you can see other comrades or fellow literature writers confess about each other, you know. They have to write those kind of reports. For me, those reports would be most crucial to understand a person. But of course you cannot, you can never see those things.

28:45They will never open it up.

28:54You were imprisoned when your own son was two years old. And thinking you were going to be detained for 10 years, you came to realize that you had been happy and satisfied with your own life, but you also began to feel a deep regret at not having reflected more on your father's life. And you decided you needed to write an honest account of what had been happening in China for the last hundred years, including as much of your father's history as you could find for your son. How well did you think you could rely on your own memories? About my... About your past and about your father. Well, I tried to be more factual, and I did a lot of research.

29:49the original material would be about 800 ,000 words. We reduced to a little bit over 100 ,000 words. So there's a lot of materials. And basically I would write very factual things and and I want to hand it to my son. So he would have a very clear record about his father and his grandfather. What was it like for you to write this book? It was, writing for me is always, it's not a very natural act, but it's more like a job. So I spend two hours every morning, sit down and do write, till I get easily to get tired when writing because you have to concentrate so much. It's not very natural. So two hours make me whole day feel tired.

31:10It's not a good job, but it takes 10 years to really make you feel okay. That's a book, it's not you're satisfied, but to think you can put it down and to do something else. How similar or different was your approach to writing to the way that you approach art?

31:44writing is difficult, but to do art is, it's just too easy for me to do it. So I cannot even compare this to... In your book, you include this quote from your father about the purpose of poetry. You write, poetry today ought to be a bold experiment in the democratic spirit and the future of poetry is inseparable from the future of democratic politics. A constitution matters even more to poets than to others, because only when the right to expression is guaranteed can one give voice to the hopes of people at large, and only then is progress possible. Wei Wei, it sounds like your father really influenced your own purpose for creating art.

32:42Or as my wife would say, you come to your craft honestly. Well, is that really I write down those things? Yeah. Okay. It's quite astonishing. Your dad wrote that. Yeah, that's why writing is difficult because it's really leading you to somewhere you will not even think about or even touch about. Eighty years later, your father's faith in poetry as freedom's ambassador has yet to find any kind of vindication in China. And you state that refusing to forget can become an act of resistance. Are you at all optimistic that your book might make inroads in changing anything in China? I don't have that kind of ambition.

33:47And yeah, I think if everybody writes, then the change will automatically come. But the problem is only a few people would write. Will your book be published there? I don't think so. Never. You write about how you believe the best things that happen in our lives and the moments we treasure most are those when we don't consciously understand ourselves. Which is true. Like now, I don't understand why I'm sitting here.

34:32Are you having any fun at all? Yeah, it's nice to be here. Talk a little bit more about how you think that lack of consciousness creates openings for things to happen. You're less prepared and that means you're more bold because you don't have this clear sense how dangerous your situation is. I think that helps a lot. Do you like danger? I think any true happiness or the moment is always related to danger. In what way? Because you are breaking the normal rationality which trying to protect you. And, you know, so then very often you have no way to start something new. At the onset of starting something new, do you experience insecurity?

35:55Why we need to be so secure? We are staying here all the time anyway, so. Do you ever have moments of doubt? Always. Why? Because I couldn't figure out all those things, why we are here and where we are going from here. And it's very hard to figure it out. Do you do a lot of planning? No. I always listen to other people's order, like now, you know. I'm waiting for the question, but I never really planned things. What would you like to be asked?

36:46I'd like to be asked where I would like to be asked.

36:55We're having fun.

36:59Do you mind if I quote something from your book? Whatever.

37:08You detail how hard it is to measure. Are you bored? No, no. I'm trying to be creative.

37:21Thank you.

37:28But of course, anything creative always comes from boredom.

37:42So you're bored. I've been creative.

37:50I see why you're a good blackjack player.

37:56Let's talk about the social purpose of art. You wrote an article in The Economist just recently where... Why you read that? We're supposed to talk about the book. Well, this is about the book. It's just not in the book. But it does refer to the book in that you talk about what the purpose of art is. and the economic value that is put on and in art. And you say that contemporary art has been compromised by capitalism. And I'm wondering if you can talk about how this has happened and what, if anything, can be done about it. We find a lot of problems but we don't know how to, you know, how to deal with it.

38:55It's just like a pandemic. We know it's existing but sometimes we think it's really existing. But of course if you read the numbers you would understand yes so many casualties and so many since has been affected. Same as when you look at contemporary art, it's easily you can draw the conclusion who is benefited and where those art goes and who's collecting and which museum they will later sit in. So I think it's easy to figure out what is wrong. How do you think it should be fixed? How to fix it? Maybe burn all those museums. Maybe, it's not only maybe. Don't do it. But film it while it's happening, so you at least have a piece of art that you make while you're doing it.

39:52It's not my suggestion. I think in the Surrealist in the last century, they said something like that. But if you could redesign the system of buying and selling art, what would you envision? I don't think anybody can design the system. The system very often designed or behaving, so.

40:19People like that.

40:23So you feel like there's no alternative? There's no other way to consider? I mean, we still have intention. We still, for the most part, do things somewhat consciously. I think it's much more complicated, the where it's really or aesthetic or moral or philosophy. It has to work together in any so-called creative work and education and everything, politics. and, you know, this conversation is still too short for that because by 8 o 'clock I have to take an airplane to another nation, you know, England. Then I have to fly to Scotland. You created 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds for an installation.

41:20It's not created. I ordered from workers in China. You know, I...

41:32I paid them the salary, and 1 ,600 lady, women, that's what they do for two years. 100 million sunflower seeds. Yes. So I've been visiting a number of different artist studios over the last year. And almost everybody that I visit now has a lot of assistants. They're an artist, but they have a lot of people working for them. Because they are lazy. Or because they... Well, I mean, that's, I think, an easy answer. I think that makes sense if you're thinking about somebody making something by hand in the traditional way. But it does allow for an artist to produce more work, to get more work out there, to be more prolific.

42:32If you were sitting yourself painting ceramic sunflowers, if you were making 100 million of them, you'd be doing that for the rest of your life. So does it change the way you view the art if somebody else is helping you? It changes the way I view the art because all those sunflowers still stay in my warehouse. And because there's too many and nobody can ever handle that many things. And also if you see every artist produce so much, but if you go to MoMA, the museum, You see, what they're hanging there is about works happening 100 years ago, like Van Gogh. Right, he didn't have a bevy of assistance.

43:21No, no, no. They're so timid. They don't know how to handle the art of today. And they're so, I don't know, they don't even drink, but they seem so drunk. Do you view the art differently, though? do you think less of it if there's more assistance in making it? I don't know. You ask too many serious questions. I'll lighten it up a little bit. Let's talk about hope. That's easy. You've said that the consequences of hope are to show the condition of our heart. I'll say that again so that the audience can really appreciate it. The consequences of hope are to show the condition of our heart. That will end up tragic.

44:15I actually was going to ask you if that means you're an optimist, and now you're telling me that it's tragic. Why is it tragic? Because being real can be very damaging, and it can be very tragic in our society. Then why even think about hope? It's just, as human, we have a lot of, we constantly make mistakes. So think about hope is one of them. You think hope is a mistake? Most likely. I cannot say every hope is a mistake, but... What are your hopes? I hope the hope is not a mistake.

45:12Your son, Ai Lau, was born shortly before your imprisonment in 2009. And you live in Portugal now. No, he's in Cambridge. And he's in Cambridge going to school. And you've stated that you, your father, and your son have all ended up on the same path, leaving the land where you were born. And you go on to write that a sense of belonging is central to one's identity. How has leaving China impacted how your son is being raised? I, it's just started, you know, I have to see the result maybe 30 years later.

46:02Are you worried? No. I believe your son calls you by your full name, Ai Weiwei. Always like that. Why? I think, I don't know. Maybe he doesn't trust me to call me a father or daddy, you know. but he called me Ai Weiwei. Your son seems also to have inherited both you and your father's artistic ability. And I understand he also writes poetry. He and his mother left China before you did. And at the time, he gave you a poem that he wanted you to wait to read until he turned eight years old. And he was five years old when he wrote it. So he wanted you to wait three years. He said he was giving it to you ahead of time, but it was about his five-year-old self.

47:03From a conceptual standpoint, that's pretty advanced for a five-year-old. Yeah, he tried to confuse me.

47:12I'd like to read that poem. Yeah. So this is a poem by Ai Lao, by Weiwei's son, five years old. The wind blows westward, the water flows eastward. I stand here remembering this lovely scene three years ago when I was still a little kid. I was already smart. Goodbye, nation. I like the last sentence, goodbye nation. Given one of your father's most famous poems is titled I Love This Land, I felt that there was a really interesting symmetry to the poetry. He also created another conceptual piece titled Frozen Hammer. Tell us about that. Well, I guess he is pretty frustrated I cannot be with him. And so he put a hammer in a freezer with water, so the hammer freezes into a block.

48:29And he said, if one day I get released, he will unfreeze that hammer. And so I think he symbolically thinks I'm the hammer, but actually I'm only a nail. So, yeah, I think it's pretty what he did. I actually put the image in the book. He made that drawing, so.

48:58I'm going to close tonight's interview with a quote. You've said that self-expression is central to human existence. Without the sound of human voices, without warmth and color in our lives, without attentive glances, Earth is just an insensate rock suspended in space. Ai Weiwei, I'd like to thank you for making our world a better one, a more vibrant one, a more conscious one, And on behalf of everyone here, I want to thank you for joining us tonight at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I weigh weight. This interview was recorded at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn, New York, as part of the Unbound series.

49:50The program was co-presented by BAM, Greenlight Bookstore, and Panamerica. Design Matters is produced from the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. In non-pandemic times, the show is recorded at the School of Visual Arts Masters in Branding Program in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.