“[Shanghai Biennale] has been my attitude for as long as I’ve been practicing art and other cultural-related activities.”

Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics.

Everyone of us is a potential convict.

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.

If artists cannot speak up for human dignity or rights, then who else will do it?

If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain

The motivation is really to say people can find the game of getting involved interesting and find the problem and really have the passion and the enthusiasm to solve it and move forward, but that’s all I know.

[Being unique] gives so much privilege to people who can make it, rather than having some moral and aesthetic discussions.

It’s like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. But during change, human rights, human dignity and free speech have to be protected. Otherwise, we’ll be going backward.

I also doubt a man can give really clear reasons for anything.

The United States is a melting pot. Like John F. Kennedy said, it’s a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump wants to build a fence that clearly makes the statement: “You and I are divided.

Imagine one day, the hateful world around you collapses. And it is your attitude, words and actions that put an end to it. Will you be excited?

The so-called culture nowadays is only a fake one with a superficial front. It is an empty lie.

I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.

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.

As a person, I was born to give out my opinions. By giving out my opinions, I realize who I am.

I was an illegal alien for many, many years. I couldn’t move. If I moved I could not even get a visa back.

We are nothing but a link between our culture and what we can actually produce.

In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

Like all magic cultures expressed by appropriate hieroglyphs, the true theater has its shadows too, and, of all languages and all arts, the theater is the only one left whose shadows have shattered their limitations.

Don’t tire yourself more than need be, even at the price of founding a culture on the fatigue of your bones.

Battle rap is a culture. That’s boxing, it’s like boxing.

As film-makers, it is very important for us to find common ground between cultures, and maybe that’s less the case for politicians who benefit more from finding the conflicts and differences between us.

Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can’t limit it to one particular culture.

The Civic Culture (and The Civic Culture Revisited) remains the best study of comparative political culture in our time.