Any Ideas.

A current work that I am just drafting has brought me to think about community and how the internet is changing our sense of community. Not just through social networking sites but also through online petitions that raise awarness of individuals plights on a global scale. Sites such as change.org and Avaaz.org allow us to stand up for others based on principles rather than location. We can be vitually present and passively active.

I’ve been putting a lot of time into following the story of Ai Weiwei lately and it’s having quite an impact on my practice. It’s only recently that I have started to become really aware of the freedoms we have as artists in the west, especially here in the Uk.

It’s easy to get hung up on things like relevance and signifcance and stuff like ‘crap, do I have anything to say?’ but in the UK we are lucky, we have the freedom to make stuff regardless of content and context. We have the freedom as artist to do, say and make pretty much anything we want.

The act of making is itself an active voice of the greatest freedom.

Heres a quote from Ai Weiwei on blogging.

“Yes, the blog is really new territory. It’s such a wonderful thing. You can talk immediately to people you don’t know. You don’t know their background and they don’t know your background. It’s like going on the street and finding a lady on a street corner. You talk directly to her. And then you start fighting, or making love.”

Brighton Frstival – A Gathering For Ai Weiwei.

I understand this is a forum for artists to speak about their practice but I hope you’ll forgive me for deviating a little.

I would like to assemble a gathering of artists, arts workers, enthusiasts and others to participate as a group in Monica Ross’s ‘Anniversary – Acts of Memory” at Brighton Festival on Sunday 29 May by 2pm.

The gathering is in support of the artist Ai Weiwei currently being unlawfully detained by the Chinese government.
I plan to memorize and recite Article 9 and 19 from UDHR.

Article 9 – No one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 19 – Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
I am hoping to provide free Jasmine tea – a small reference to the Jasmine revolution with which Ai is associated.
If wish to join me Please meet at the tea station.

It would be great to bring together as many participants together as possible. If you are a chinese speaker willing to memorize and recite these two Articles or if you are able to help in any other way Please, do get in touch.
Ai Weiwei’s whereabouts and condition are unknown and rumors of torture are circulating. See http://www.chinaaid.org/2011/04/tortured-by-police…

and http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/37649/ai-weiwei-…

He has been missing for more than 40 days now.

I find it hard to believe that with all the media and arts sector coverage the weight of the world can be so ineffective in aiding an individual (Ai is not the only one missing but he has received the most media coverage).

I do not know if Ai Weiwei has committed an offence (allegedly tax evasion is the crime ‘picked out’ in order to facilitate a means to silence him) but that is beside the point. More to the point is that the Chinese government according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and apparently according to their own law are illegally detaining Ai.

It would be easy to place Ai onto some form of pedestal but the point is that the means the Chinese government are employing are wrong regardless of the charge against Ai.

Please join me to stand in unison for Ai and against the Chinese government at the Old Bowling Green, Queens Park, Brighton on the 29th May from 3pm.

A link to Acts of Memory is posted below
http://www.actsofmemory.net/

Anniversary — an act of memory,
recitations from memory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Monica Ross and Co-Recitors
Brighton Festival 2011 Freedom Picnic, from 2pm, 29 MAY
Anniversary — an act of memory is a performance series in 60 acts focusing on the importance and relevance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Launched in December 2008 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Declaration, it features solo, collective and multi-lingual recitations from memory of the entire UDHR by Monica Ross and Co-Recitors. To date more than 200 people have memorised and recited articles in over 30 languages.
www.actsofmemory.net
www.youtube.com/actofmemory
www.brightonfestival.org
If you would like to memorize and recite a relevant article from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in a language of your choice please can you also let Rebecca Fidler at Brighton Festival know so that Rebecca can keep you posted as the form of the recitation develops; [email protected]

The Declaration is available in more than 370 languages from here http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/SearchByLang.aspx

I believe the detention of Ai Weiwei to be a form of kidnapping or hostage taking. The Ransom? Ai’s basic human rights and human dignity and maybe the rights and dignity of countless other Chinese artists.