100 PHOTOS BY AI WEIWEI FOR PRESS FREEDOM

WHA THE B T BE OOK IJIN THAT GW ANT REVEA 100 PHOTOS S TO LS BY AI WEIWEI HID FOR PRESS E
FREEDOM

UNDER STRICT SURVEILLANCE

In June this year, the Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei became an ambassador for Reporters Without Borders. With the world-renowned multi-media artist, who has been jailed then placed under house arrest, the collaboration was making perfect sense. In 2008 Reporters Without Borders created an image that showed the rings of the Beijing Olympics as handcuffs. It spread around the globe, and drew attention to the worlds biggest prison for journalists. Since then, freedom of information has been extremely precarious for news media and netizens alike. China is ranked 173rd of 179 countries in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. Thus campaigners for the basic right to inform and be informed are vigilant and ready to take action against constant violence and pervasive censorship. State Power, Secret Police: an exclusive series of photographs. In yet another act of resistance on his part, Ai Weiwei has made available to Reporters Without Borders dozens of photos that document the surveillance to which he has been subjected. Thus he adds another building block to his vast body of work of exposing all kinds of restrictions on free speech. As he puts it: A single act is worth a million intentions. A number of well-known figures are also associated with this album: - Lech Walesa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, - Magnum Photos agency photographer Stuart Franklin, winner of a World Press Photo award for his Tank man photo taken in Tiananmen Square, - The Hong Kong-based publisher Bao Pu, publishing books that have been censored in China, - Journalist Pierre Haski, founder of the French news website Rue89, - The Chinese dissidents Hu Ping, Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, as well as the writer Liao Yiwu, some of whose unpublished articles are included here.

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The dangerous search for the truth

Ai Weiwei

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Weiwei

The artist Born in 1957, Ai Weiwei is one of the most influential figures in contemporary art. His works, as varied as the facets of his personality, are exhibited throughout the world. A photographer, architect, sculptor and film-maker, this dissident artist challenges convention and creates an impact with strange and unusual works such as Template, a sculpture consisting of wooden doors and windows recovered from houses of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The resistance fighter Ai Weiwei owes his reputation in part to his rebellious nature. His activism, such as his outspoken support for an investigation into the deaths of children in the Sichuan earthquake, led to the closure of his blog and a ban on leaving the country He was arrested and released after being held for 81 days, in the wake of an international campaign by human rights activists. The documentary film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry by Alison Klayman tells the story of his daily battle against censorship.

The activist Since 2005 Ai Weiwei has become a new media enthusiast. Fascinated by the energy of blogging and discussion forums, he was hooked and began sharing his reflections and photos on the subjects of architecture, art and current affairs He uses the Internet as a means of defiance and has hundreds of thousands of followers. www.aiweiwei.com facebook.com/aiweiwei258 twitter.com/aiww instagram.com/aiww

Ai Weiwei in the elevator as he was being taken into police custody. Sichuan, August 2009.

An Eye for an Eye

After he was imprisoned for more than two months and his studio destroyed in 2011, Ai Weiwei decided to turn the oppressive surveillance to which the Chinese authorities subjected him on a daily basis into a work of art. Everything is art. Everything is politics, he likes to say. Defiantly and with a sense of irony, he pointed spotlights at the no longer-so-secret police, filmed those keeping watch on him and marked out video cameras with red lanterns, traditional symbols of the Chinese bourgeoisie. The artist played tit-for-tat, reflecting the image of the spies lurking in the restaurant or outside his door back at them. Ai Weiwei gives us a disturbing glimpse of a world deprived of free speech. He invites us to reflect on the power of information and to take action to denounce surveillance.

Lantern outside the gate of the Caochangdi studio.

Stake-out outside a bookshop overlooking Chaoyang Park in Beijing.

1-10-2013

Without freedom of speech there is no modern world just a barbaric one.

Ai Weiwei, Weiwei-isms, Larry Warsh, Princeton University Press

12-11-2011 2:35 pm

Installation of a surveillance camera.

Surveillance camera outside the studio gate.

10-4-2011 9:43 am

Any power or structure that seeks to maintain full control and is not open in any way to loosening its power eventually makes itself ridiculous.

Ai Weiwei, Weiwei-isms, Larry Warsh, Princeton University Press

8-29-2011 10:19 pm

100 PHOTOS BY AI WEIWEI FOR PRESS FREEDOM

The celebrated 100 Photos for Press Freedom books pay tribute to realitys artists, to those who record fleeting moments for eternity. By going beyond the world of the 24-hour news cycle, by probing the lives of the well-known and the unknown, photoreporters show us humankind and human societies. By holding up their mirror to existence, they reveal to us who we are. As so many other famous photographers have done for Reporters Without Borders in previous books, Italys Paolo Pellegrin is showing us his world in this collection, a universe in tension between brutal materialism and ethereal aspiration. A world so near and so far. It is a quality of great journalists and great photographers to have their feet in the sand, in the mud or on tiled floors and their heads (and their eyes) in the stars.

100 photos oF Paolo Pellegrin For press Freedom

100 photos oF Paolo Pellegrin For press Freedom

Printed in France

100 PHOTOS OF MARTIN PARR FOR PRESS FREEDOM

Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders

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for the

freedom of the press

100 photographs
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For more than 20 years, Reporters Without Borders has published a unique collection of albums entitled 100 Photos for Press Freedom. Three times a year RWB, the main independent organization that campaigns for freedom of information worldwide, invites renowned photographers committed to the cause to support its struggle. More than 120,000 copies of the bilingual albums are sold worldwide. They owe their popularity to the quality of the photographs and their affordable price of 9.90 euros, and also to the sense of involvement that they portray. All the income from these sales goes towards the activities of Reporters Without Borders. This year for the first time, an enhanced digital version is available in French and English on the Apple Store.

Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy - 9,90 / Germany - 12,50 / Switzerland 16 FS / Canada - $C9,50 / DOM - 10,90 / Marocco - 120 MAD / Tunisia - 13,50 TND