The first Italian exhibition of the Chinese dissident artist Badiucao “China is not close”, will be held at the Santa Giulia Museum in Brescia from November 13 to February 13, 2002. A few days ago the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China wrote to the City of Brescia, asking very harshly to cancel the event: “The works he exhibits are full of lies … spread false information .. endanger Italy-China relations”. But the City of Brescia and the Museums Foundation did not yield, returning the threats to the sender with a letter signed by the mayor Emilio del Bono which reminded the Chinese that freedom of expression is an indispensable value. Badiucao uses art as an instrument of denunciation and his drawings have become an icon of the Hong Kong movement and of those in China who care about freedom and democracy. His activism forced him to leave China, after many threats: he lives in Sydney in Australia.
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by Natasha Caragnano
Badiucao, did you expect such strong pressure to have your exhibition canceled?
“My favorite painting is David Holding the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio. Not only because it describes the defeat of a normal man against a giant, but because both David and Goliath are both self-portraits of Caravaggio himself. This reminds me of the conflict. between my Chinese identity and China itself. The Chinese government with heavy threats canceled my exhibition in Hong Kong in 2018. It was a mistake then to suffer: silence is complicity and Chinese bullying must be addressed. I think it is very important what the Museums Foundation and the Mayor of Brescia did: they did not give in to pressure and defended art and freedom of expression “.
Repression of dissent and attack on intellectuals are nothing new in the People’s Republic of China …
“My grandfather and his brother lost their lives during the so-called Cultural Revolution, which killed millions of intellectuals, teachers, professionals, students. My grandfather was a director and one of the pioneers of the Chinese film industry, he was locked up in a Laogai, a camp of concentration, his films were called “poisonous weed”. He was forced to a very hard forced labor and died of starvation in less than a year “.
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by our correspondent Gianuca Modolo
Can you tell us what you are working on?
“I am continuing to work on the” Wuhan Diaries “, to tell the brutal way in which China has dealt with the coronavirus emergency. The next commitment will be the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022. The tables published today try to reveal the context of extreme repression in which the oppressive network control machine and the omnipresent surveillance systems, the hopes and the defeat of the Hong Kong movement will take place, alongside some sports with the repression in Tibet and Xinjiang “.
Do you think the West should boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics?
“Yes, there is an ongoing genocide of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and a progressive militarization of Tibet. In Hong Kong all remaining freedoms have been canceled in a few months. I cannot believe that the free world can accept an Olympics that will be used by the regime for self-celebration “.
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by our correspondent Gianluca Modolo
Should the West be more incisive towards the Chinese regime?
“The great majority of Chinese have at heart the same universally shared values of freedom, respect and tolerance … There is still hope for a democratic China: but the West must help us, abandoning useless” appeasement “policies, stopping treat China as a normal country, starting to forcefully denounce the thousand violations of fundamental rights “.
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