Ai Weiwei with Peter Sellars and Orville Schell

Returning to the Berkeley campus for the first time in 15 years, renowned artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei discusses art, politics, and modern life in a conversation with respected theater director Peter Sellars and Orville Schell, Director of the Center on US-China Relations at the Asia Society. Ai’s unprecedented installation on Alcatraz in 2014–15, @Large, left an enduring mark on the Bay Area’s cultural landscape, an effort the Los Angeles Times called “an always-poignant, often-powerful meditation on soul-deadening repressions of human thought and feeling.” Ai addresses issues of exile, imprisonment, repression, and advocacy that have infused his personal life and artistic work with fellow artist Sellars, himself an avid student of Chinese history and culture, and Schell, a leading expert on China and the Far East. This program continues a series of campus talks about China led by Schell, who is former Dean at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.