I said it my Wei

Back to the Sunday Evening Documentary.

Yesterday, when I came home from the documentary screening I tweeted about how every time I come back from these events I feel like writing an essay. Boring? Maybe. Still, when a dear friend replied with a short "Blooooog!", I realized that the swirl of thoughts deserve to find some peace and order outside of my head, so here I am. Also, great part of the motivation came from the documentary itself.

Now to the point:

Ai Wei Wei: Never Sorry.

¿What's it about?

This short documentary is about the story of a man that in a country where there is no freedom of expression, China, has raised his voice through art and social media in a way that is so efficient, that even if he can be silenced, the echo of what he has done keeps on growing louder.

This film can be taken from a lot of points of view, the artist within the movie, the art as a form of expression, the political system in China, the motives of this man, I'm sure that even a social media strategist would find it VERY interesting... and related to this is what I'll talk about: the way in he uses social media to call action.

¿Why do I say that this particular point has caught my attention? Well, nowadays we all complain about how the media controls our lives... but the media now more than ever is controlled by the people. We can chose what to watch from millions and millions of options... but not only that, most importantly, we can chose what to create.

For me this is the most important thing that Ai Wei Wei teaches us. The power of action is in our hands. Yes, it's a scary road, it's true. But it's "doable".  The time when you had to keep your thoughts to ourselves is long gone. If you can tweet, or post an instagram picture of the not transcendental lunch you had... why not do the same with the transcendental ideas you may have? We might not all have the genius that this man has to communicate his ideas so effectively; or the charisma to bring such a crowds together, but come on people, I know we are better than just a bunch of dirty jokes and pictures about food.

Ok, Ai Wei Wei managed to get exhibitions in the Tate and many other important museums... but do we really have to make it at that scale to have something good to say?

I think not, and you?