Ai Weiwei borned in Beijing in 1957, he is a conceptual artist, curator and architect. He studied at the Beijing Film Acasemy and the Parson School of Design. He has been one of the most innovative figures in China’s art world.

domus: Can you tell us about your recent work?
Ai Weiwei: I’ve recently finished several lectures at MIT, Harvard and Cornell University, mainly about my artistic, architectural and design activities. Currently I’m focusing on two or three architectural projects and a few exhibitions including Kassel Documenta, a solo exhibitions including Kassel Documenta, a solo exhibition in Switzerlang and some shows in Holland and Austria, for which I am preparing large installations.

domus: Are you working on any publication?
Ai Weiwei: There is a book about China as a whole. In the past two years I’ve spent a lot of energy on this book, but it’s still only midway. The first reason for this is that China is changing rapidly and tremendously; secondly, the book draws from various fields-social, political, economic and some complicated things that are hard to classify. In addition to this book, I’m also working on several books related to contemporary art and photography, at least five or six in total.

domus: What kind of work does your studio assist you with?
Ai Weiwei: We do everyting, from architecture to art, exhibition and publication. Now we are planning to do product design, including clothes and lifestyle products. I think China lacks its own design, and we don’t see any international high-level cultural products. It’s really a shame, because we actually have some fantastic traditions, technologies and concepts. So someone should be designing these kinds of things-umbrellas, a pair of slippers or soap-that are related to everyone’s daily life. This is something I have dreamed for some years, and now I think the conditions are ripe to begin.

domus: Why do you give up focusing on architecture now?
Ai Weiwei: I’ve finished about fifty buildings in the last six years and I feel so exhausted. Of course this isn’t the major reason; the primary reason is tha you must be responsible for everything in an architectural project, from the initial design to completion, down to the installation of every light bulb and every handle. Working in China can be excruciating, because you have to do everyting by yourself. So we are planning to do less architecture or simply none at all.

domus: Whom do you find comparatively outstanding in the Chinese design field?
Ai Weiwei: I haven’t see anyone extraordinary in the field of product design. Sometimes there is a little creativity in clothes design, but these designers aren’t extremely original and have no apparent advantage. Compared to Japanese design, whose absence would have resulted in a great loss to today’s design field, Chinese people don’t have a clear definition or control of their own culture. This is also a major feature in China: the designs’ inability to identify themselves.

domus: What do you think the similarities and differences are between Chinese contemporay architecture and art?
Ai Weiwei: Both of them are the focus of great concern. Architecture, because it is on such a large scale and there are many things currently happening in the field. About contemporary art, these part two years contemporary art from China has received a lot of attention in the international art world. There has never been a nation, a region that has received such a warm welcome or investment on such a scale as this. But the difference art has with architecture is that art is a cultural activity and the public’s concerns with it is not obligatory. It speaks a different language that lies outside the systems of Western culture, which makes Westerners very curious. The reason why Chinese art has received more enthusiasm and investment than any country or region has before is because it reflects th alleged post-socialism, power of speech or violent language period, these cultural traces of a pre-existing capitalist materialist period. These traces don’t exist in a stable Western society, and their configurations here are very rich.

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