Diplomatic World_nummer 56.

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an evil regime against which stands a knight-like hero. That’s
a bit of a caricature of the European perception of China,
but still it’s more or less true. What most people don’t know
is that Weiwei is the son of Ai Qing, a famous poet who was
one of the founding members of the communist party, so
he is also, so to speak, a red prince. Nevertheless, Weiwei
is an interesting personality, there’s nothing that I could
say against that. His influence on a whole generation of
Chinese artists is obvious. He’s also a very gifted architect,
he made his first architectural project in Caochangdi, the
artist village that is home to a diverse group of residents,
including migrant workers, farmers, students and artists, on
the outskirts of Beijing. Those are all obvious merits.
What I get irritated by is this kind of very limited European
attitude of wanting to know only this one artist and the lack
of interest in any others. And I can tell you that in this grey
zone you have a whole group of wonderful artists whom
I consider among the best of their generation, worldwide!
Let me stress that for those artists, their behaviour and
their functioning as artists are no different from the way
European or Belgian artists function.
The university is your home base, you said.
Personally, I’m convinced that the university should
be an excellent biotope for exceptional creativity
and out-of-the box thinking. Sometimes university
leadership and certainly Faculty leadership tend
to forget this, and should be reminded about it.
You don’t fit into any box. I don’t know anything
equivalent or similar to what you’re doing. Do you
still believe that the university is the only right place
for you?
I very much presume so, but let me first tell you this: if
you’re a pioneering type of person, which I think I am,
you also must question the place where you work. I always
consider the university as a free haven; it was born and
meant to be like that. Remember what is written on the
gate of the main building of Heidelberg university: “Dem
lebendigen Geist”. This is also my motto. When I look
at my field of research in general, it’s in a miserable state
because it hasn’t succeeded in finding an interesting place
in a rapidly changing world. It’s also the university’s task to
question its own operational models and I believe that I’m
contributing to that. But, of course, I’m also thankful for the
freedom to operate in the field I have chosen as my focus of
attention. I travel a lot, I’m very much interested in bridging
gaps between cities and refining of my experimental form of
making exhibitions and, yes, life is short.
I’ve followed your activities closely and interacted
with several of your team members. They’re all
very special personalities, creative and willing to
think out-of-the box. But, how do you manage to get
finances for all this?
Well, let me put it this way. When I did Brussels Body
Speech in 2010, it opened a lot of windows in the minds of
Belgian diplomats in China. So, immediately afterwards they
invited me to do a project in Beijing commemorating 45
years of diplomatic ties between Belgium and China; so we
succeeded in entering CAFA, the Central Academy of Fine
Arts, which is probably the most performing art campus
in the world. I‘m still very proud that we succeeded in
partnering with them because it is really not easy. Since that
moment, we’ve done four or five projects for the Brussels
regional government and they’ve financed a large part of
those grassroot projects.
I must say that, looking at their global impacts, I’m quite
satisfied with what we succeeded in doing. If I say we, it’s
again a question of teamwork and personalities that are
critical to creating success. But we can say that over the
last few years, with all those projects in China, Korea,
Japan, Germany and Italy, we succeeded in creating a
deep awareness among all those key political figures in the
Brussels region.
It’s strange that the awareness has been raised here
in Brussels while almost all your projects are taking
place somewhere else, in an international context.
Well, we also did two big projects in BOZAR. It’s true that
we’re now thinking of turning this initiative into a kind
of hub, a lightweight structure embedded in the Brussels
Capital Region. The first thing I want to do is to open a
completely new field of action that’s complementary to the
international projects, because the challenge isn’t only to
work globally on what cultural diplomacy is supposed to be,
but also to work locally.
Thank you, Hans De Wolf, for this most fascinating
story that reveals various aspects of your
personality, ambitions and achievements. Is there
anything you’d like to add to the story?
Yes, in times that are very much marked by short term
benefits and returns on investments, times when people
are very often under pressure to deliver all kinds of
things, I’d like to thank all those people whose minds
were open enough, whose understanding of what we were
doing was good enough to accompany us on this road.