we're 40 days away from the 2022 winter olympics in beijing games that come wreathed
in controversy to many china is a problematic host given the country's human rights abuses
and hard authoritarian turn one of the loudest voices condemning china is not a voice at all
but rather a hand since self-exiling from china in 2009 the artist known simply as
bodhitsau has used his work to take on the country's leader xi jinping specifically
and the regime more generally like all the best political cartoonists body itself
is alternately angry and playful as he calls attention to what he sees as china's brutality
it's come at a steep price bariatr may never go home again but on he goes traveling the world
using paint and wit online and on walls to draw truth to power the story will continue in a moment
had you been in miami beach this fall you'd be forgiven for walking by this plaza and
thinking you'd encountered promotional billboards for the beijing winter olympics
but a closer look revealed a provocative visual argument for why china is unfit to host the games
here was a chinese hockey player bloodying a tibetan monk a chinese snowboarder atop a
surveillance camera a faceless chinese biathlete poised to execute a member of the uyghur minority
a curler representing china's delay in warning the world about kovit this was the handiwork of
paritsau a 35 year old chinese exile now based in australia i notice if you look closely those
aren't conventional olympic rings they're actually made of barbed wire that's exactly how china is
going to use olympics not as a celebration for humanity but actually use it as a platform to
promoting its propaganda which is fundamentally cracking down on people's basic rights
had come to south florida to accept the human rights foundation's vaclav havel prize for
creative dissent what do you see as the purpose of your art i sometimes just imagine i'm this kid
who's holding a big rock and just throw the rock into the lake so that we see all the splash we see
the change you throw your rock in this lake see the splash see where the ripples ripple
exactly china does not tolerate ripples inside china there are strict laws forbidding mocking in
questioning leaders of the communist party known as the ccp even outside china dissent does not go
over well do you feel in danger do you feel unsafe well this is actually my daily routine that i will
receive death threats in a daily basis online on my social media twitter instagram direct message
bariata knows that as an artist poking the chinese regime he risks retaliation both against himself
and his family back in china for years he hid behind a mask in public working
incognito guerrilla style both in australia and any time he traveled he adopted a pseudonym
bariata a name that purposely he says has no meaning how many people know your real name
if you know i'm bariotal then you don't know my real name and if you know my real name then you
don't know i'm about to talk when the chinese figured out his real identity three years ago
bariatao initially went underground but he took off his mask and has continued hurling
darts at the regime in this recent cartoon tennis star pungshui confronts the reality of
accusing a former vice premier of sexual assault i want to be an inspiring figure i want my art
to helping others to collecting courage and join me but if i giving up this then
what does it say to the rest of them what is the relationship between your popularity and
your security i do think it has a very close relationship so almost the more popular you get
you're buying yourself an extra layer of security yeah and that's the only way that you can do it
maybe so but being popular also means his work has been scrubbed by sensors inside china what is it
about your work that drives this regime crazy i guess it's this attitude that i don't care about
how serious you are how dangerous you are i'm just gonna be myself
i am an individual i'm not controlled by any authority certainly not ccp that scares them
because all they want is total control it sounds like you know exactly what buttons to push what
what levers to pull on that's gonna tweak them i guess it's not me finding the button it's them
offering the button to me one example among many in internet memes surfaced comparing xi jinping
and barack obama to winnie the pooh and tigger no big deal right china censored any mention
or image linking xi to pooh to body itsau this was irresistible he created a series of cartoons
poking fun at shi's hard-line stance against an animated disney character what was it about winnie
the pooh why was that so effective because winnie pooh is so loved by public it's so recognized
and when it's combined with xi jinping's image then you have people ask questions why do you
want to delete that yellow bear you recognize the absurdity of this towering superpower being
so offended by a benign yellow bear exactly if you were in the democratic society i think politicians
will be thrilled if they can compare with winnie the pooh instead of some evil character but we're
talking about china when she was re-elected by china's parliament the margin was 2970 to zero
and when she got rid of term limits allowing him to rule indefinitely
bhadiatsao posted this tongue-in-cheek creation online he called she forever when the communist
party went to work on passing a resolution favorably equating she to the dictator mao zedong
variation armed with posters homemade glue and a full satchel of outrage went to work in manhattan
he compared xi to a magician conjuring chairman mao's spirit xi jinping has tried to portray
himself as another malta another red son of china he won't achieve what mao has achieved
he won't be celebrated as this god-like figure like mao enjoyed in his time it was by accident
that badiyatsao became a leading critic of the chinese communist party in 2007 he was a law
student in his hometown of shanghai watching a film online when the movie abruptly switched
to footage someone had secretly embedded depicting the 1989 student protests in tiananmen square
that is actually the very first time i know this exists so wait so you're
in law school you're in your 20s i am and the first time you're hearing about the tiananmen
square massacres worldwide news and the first time you're hearing about it is when
randomly yeah it's in a documentary you happen to see yeah thanks to some you know clever
dissident who made this happen your parents hadn't told you about this never teachers never
discovering the truth about tiananmen square made baditsau want to leave china
it wasn't just what had happened it was how easily the history was erased
in 2009 he resettled to australia gave up law and started drawing despite no formal training he
eventually branched out traveling and performing street art to highlight china's repression
in these scenes from the australian documentary china's artful dissident bhariatsau still masked
posed in front of berlin's brandenburg gate he was honoring one of the most taboo subjects in china
tank man the nameless pro-democracy protester who stood in front of the chinese military in 1989.
tank man is the ghost hunting ccp the most what does tankman represent it shows that any ordinary
people or person could have the courage to stand in front of the most powerful object i know the
image of tank man is always near you before the 25th anniversary of tandem massacre i just want
something on my right arm the arm that i used to draw as a reminder that this ordinary chinese guy
who just collect all the courage in the world and push himself in front of the tank
he's fearless while in the u.s bodyatsau connected with students who marched for
democracy in tiananmen square they're now middle aged exiled and still bare scars
fang zhang lost his legs to a tank during the massacre joe fungsuo was among the first to enter
tiananmen square and one of the last to leave the former students see bonitsau keeping alive their
ideals it's important for the next generation to carry the torch on and i see this hope on him
and he's so creative that's how you feel he's he's carrying the torch for what your generation
started yes definitely as a protest leader joe became the fifth most wanted man in china
he spent a year in jail then fled to the u.s in the mid-90s joe says china doesn't know how to
handle bhadiatsau chinese influence over the world is so pervasive and they can control anything for
example you know u.s companies but still they cannot change value utah this one single person
who can always come out with endless arts challenging the authority you think the
chinese communist party can pressure companies and other nations yeah but they can't they can't
change this perspective yeah that's the spirit of tenkamen the person versus this totalitarian
nation it's definitely a thong in their eye bariatro may be a lone dissident taking on the
world's largest government but he is convinced his is no exercise in futility you said you admire the
mythological figure sisyphus right what do you mean by that his mission seems like
doomed that he will never push the rock to the very top of the mountain
it's a bit like me when i'm creating artworks to challenge chinese regime
i don't know when it will be changed or i don't know if my work would change it at all
but even if that is a reality does it mean my work has no meaning i don't think so in september
body itself brought out his paintbrush to convey his outrage for china's crackdown on hong kong
fashioning hong kong's leader carrie lamb as a puppet of xi jinping bariatro melded their faces
last month in northern italy a center of art that combined image greeted visitors as bariatro held
his first major solo exhibition in the city of bresha it almost didn't happen at the last
minute china tried to flex its muscle they're actually writing threatening letters it's like
a blackmailing you know if you do bodytalk show then maybe in the future our collaboration will
be problematic specifically the chinese embassy in rome demanded the show be cancelled because
the exhibition was full of anti-chinese lies would seriously wound the feelings of the chinese people
and posed a threat to friendly relations between china and italy the italian authorities held
firm and the show went on there was a nod to what bodhitsau sees as xi's willfully
slow response to covet and he paid homage to the uyghur minority that china has imprisoned
to what extent are you representing the people who can't express themselves inside china i think this
is the reality that chinese people do not have a sense of safety that they can speak freely
but i am in this very privileged position that i'm not in china so i have every responsibility
to make my voice to be heard to become their voices