[The Olympics are] an event manipulated into misleading people into believing that we have entered a new, successful and harmonious period in our his… - Ai Weiwei

To protect the right of expression is the central part of an artist’s activity. . . . . In China many essential rights are lacking, and I wanted to remind people of this.

Citizens should bear the responsibility to act.

I think the government [will] lose the battle. Because for a nation to develop, the government needs to correct the information, they need to have a space for people to be involved, to discuss, to participate in the change. Otherwise, I don’t think they can really last in this kind of development, because economically it goes so fast but politically it stays the same as many, many years ago. I think even the government senses that this is impossible.