Bosla Arts Recommends: Zodiac

Reccomendations2024

Feb 12

Each month Bosla Arts recommends a book, film, exhibition, or anything else by artists and activists that we believe is instrumental in transnational solidarity. For February, we have chosen, Zodiac by Ai Weiwei.

This beautiful graphic memoir, created in collaboration with Gianluca Costantini and Elettra Stamboulis, fuses storytelling with moments from Ai Weiwei’s life - through the lens of the Chinese Lunar calendar.

Each chapter focuses on a different animal from the Lunar Calendar and interweaves it with stories from Ai Weiwei’s life and career exploring his relationship with China, history, persecution, and time.

The book includes stories about Ai Weiwei’s father, the famous poet Ai Qing who, in 1957, was charged for being counter-revolutionary and internally exiled, in the backdrop of conversations between Ai Weiwei and his own son who speaks to his grandfather’s spirit. It draws upon attempts to silence artists across generations (as both Ai Weiwei and his father faced persecution) as well as notions of home when exiled.

“Hope is your very shadow. But it always walks ahead.” [1]

Throughout the book, Ai Weiwei considers the relationship between free expression and art. Taking the example of Lui Xiaobo, a Chinese poet, activist, and Nobel Prize Winner who was imprisoned by the government and died behind bars in 2017, the book underlines that bravery lies in speaking the truth. That no matter where you live - democratic country or not - where there is power there are assaults on our freedom and we must be brave enough to speak out against them.

“Those who flee freedom live on but their souls die in fear. Those who thirst for freedom die but their souls live on in resistance.” [2]

This is particularly poignant today as Ai Weiwei’s latest exhibition at the Lisson Gallery in London was cancelled after he shared a tweet commenting on Israel’s siege on Gaza. [3]

“Art is a special form of freedom of speech, and if freedom of speech doesn’t exist, we cannot call it art.” [4]

Above all Zodiac resonates so much with what we do at Bosla Arts. That the power of art lies in it’s ability to shape our understanding of the world, to make us question everything around us, and gives us the strength to keep fighting for our freedom. It also underlines the importance of standing up for artists who are silenced as a result.

As the book writes:
“[Art] is the most powerful tool if you want to change the world.” [5]