To survive, China had to open up to the West. It could not survive otherwise. This was after many millions have died of hunger in a country that was like North Korea is today. Once we became part of global competition, we had to agree to some rules. It's painful, but we had to. Otherwise there was no way to survive.

If you just turn to your paper or television each day, there are thousands of stories that are much more shocking than the gallery artworks.

No outdoor sports can be more elegant than throwing stones at autocracy; no melees can be more exciting than those in cyberspace.

In the end, I think, the state's rigidity is a function of its own insecurity, its indecisiveness.

I have people working together, doing different things: architecture, art installation, photography, publishing, and curatorial works and design.

Every day I'm learning something new from the practice. It's very rewarding.

I was in the most restricted prison in China, the most tough. The design of the prison is modeled for internal crimes of the Communist party, so it's like a mafia family's law. It's independent to the law this nation openly applies. It's the place they take you before they give you over to the judicial system. You stay there for a year or two and they make you really suffer to confess everything.