Liu Xia at her apartment window, Beijing, August 2012. Photo by Hu Jia.
“The Silent Strength of Liu Xia,” the touring exhibition of 26 photos by the dissident Chinese photographer, artist, and poet, has suspended its tour temporarily.
The new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing continues to sort itself out amidst assorted power plays and scandals. Since decisions regarding the fate of Liu Xia and her imprisoned husband, Liu Xiaobo, may get made during the next few months, we think it wise to put this effort on hold.
Over the summer and fall of 2012 the exhibition appeared in Hong Kong; Taipei, Taiwan; Berlin, Germany; and Madrid, Spain.
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Liu Xia in her Beijing apartment, Associated Press interview, 12-6-12, screenshot.
Meanwhile, either accidentally or on purpose, the guards who for two years have kept Liu Xia from leaving her apartment, and have kept visitors (including press) from entering her home, inexplicably stepped away for several hours during the lunch period on December 6. This enabled two intrepid Associated Press reporters to enter the apartment and record Liu Xia’s first interview in 26 months. since her extralegal house arrest began in October 2010, a few days after Liu Xiaobo received the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
The video includes a scene of Liu Xia standing in front of a wall covered with small prints of the photographs included in her touring show, plus some other images.
- Click here for “AP Exclusive: China Nobel wife speaks on detention,” the report by Isolda Morillo and Alexa Olesen, as it appeared at the website SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle, December 6, 2012. This includes a slideshow of images made during the interview.
- Click here for “Wife of Chinese Nobel Prize Winner Speaks Out,” Associated Press, December 6, 2012, the video interview as posted at YouTube.
Liu Xia smoking at her apartment window, Beijing, October 2012, video by Reporters Without Borders, screenshot.
In the interview a distraught, weeping Liu Xia discusses the stress resulting from this extended period of living in solitary confinement, during which she “is only allowed weekly trips to buy groceries and visit her parents” — and, once each month, so visit her husband in jail. Suffering in addition from a back injury, she says, “I think Kafka could not have written anything more absurd and unbelievable than this.” Two policewomen reside full-time inside the duplex apartment, while plainclothes police stand guard outside.
On October 12, 2012, Reporters Without Borders released a grainy nighttime video, shot from outside, showing Liu Xia smoking at her apartment window.
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