New Facebook Friend: Ai Weiwei, Chinese dissident artist

(pronounced I Way-way)

53-year-old Weiwei is unlike any other artist you've ever seen. Not only is his artwork moving and innovative - see his porcelain Sunflowers below - made by unemployed villagers in a Chinese province -



Sunflowers is currently on display at the Tate Modern in London thru May 2011

but he openly challenges the Chinese government with full knowledge of what he's doing and the likelihood of his getting caught, imprisoned, and even killed.

Police detained him on April 3, 2011, and he hasn't been heard from since. He's been beaten and received a blood clot in his brain from the beating. After he'd healed, he went to the police station to file a complaint against the men who assaulted him.

He is a hero to many Chinese young people who he reached through the Internet.

When the govt refused to list the names of thousands of missing children killed in an earthquake in 2006, Weiwei and 30 volunteers took matters in their own hands. They went door to door and met with outraged, saddened families and compiled a list of over 4,000 names of children.

What was esp. appalling was that the govt had not taken proper precautions when building the schools in this notorious danger zone.

To honor the children, he created Backpacks, which was shown outdoors in a Munich museum.

Message wrin in Chinese is from what one mother said about her child: She lived happily for seven years in this world.

To me, this man is another Nelson Mandela or Raoul Wallenberg.

I ardently hope for the miracle of his release. Of course, he will only go at it again.