WATCH: In the Studio with Ai Weiwei

I treat every piece as the first piece I'm doing and also as the last piece I'm doing.

I don't like to have any sense of repeating or any sense of a security. I think that ruins everything. Especially for artists.

If you see artists they did something under 10 years [ago], or 20 years, and some 30 years later they are still doing the same thing. I would not understand that type of practice.

I think art is not important at all. I would say being a human being, to have a consciousness, make judgment, to have your self expression, are really important. It doesn't have to be as art.

Activist is even more strange. I would say anybody who is alive, consciously or not, is an activist. Otherwise, how can I be alive?