An exhibition of photograps by Liu Xia (劉霞), the widow of Chinese democracy advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), is to be held at Taipei’s Museum of Contemporary Art in March, the museum’s director said on Friday.
The poet and photographer is unlikely to open the exhibition in person, because of concerns that the Chinese authorities might be upset if she visited Taiwan, risking the safety of her brother, who lives in Beijing, director Yuki Pan (潘小雪) said.
“To avoid the consequence [she is] unwilling to see,” Liu Xia is unable to meet the media freely for the time being, Pan said.
Photo: Liu Xia
The joint exhibition by Liu Xia and Tsai Hai-ru (蔡海如), titled “A Swing of Breath” (呼吸鞦韆), is to take place from March 30 to May 26, with 26 photographs and poems by Liu featured alongside Tsai’s installation art.
Tsai is a Taiwanese artist who, like Liu, has also seen a family member — her father — suffer from political persecition.
Tsai’s father was jailed for more than two decades as a political dissident during the White Terror era.
Liu’s photographs were taken during the three-year period that her husband was jailed at a re-education through labor camp on charges of “disturbing the social order,” the museum said.
Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”
He died of cancer in July 2017 in Shenyang, in China’s Liaoning Province, while serving an 11-year jail sentence for “inciting subversion of state power.”
After her husband’s plight gained international attention, Liu Xia’s photographic works were banned from being exhibited in China and were only shown in private settings or online, Pan said.
Liu Xia was freed and left Beijing, arriving in Berlin on July 10 last year.
Altogether, she spent eight years under house arrest.
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