Badiucao () is a Chinese-born Australian: "In 2009, Badiucao moved to Australia, where he has since become a citizen" political cartoonist, artist and rights activist based in Australia. He is regarded as one of China's most prolific and well-known political cartoonists. He adopted his pen-name to protect his identity.
Biography Early life Badiucao was born in 1986 and raised in urban Shanghai. His paternal grandfather was a pioneer filmmaker, who was persecuted after the communists came to power, sent to laogai farms in Qinghai during the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and starved to death. A few years later, his father became an orphan when his grandmother died in poverty on Chinese New Year's Eve. His father grew up with the help of neighbours and strived for university education, but was denied admission because of family ties.: "My grandfather was the first generation of Chinese filmmakers, and was persecuted after the founding of the People’s Republic of China and sent to a farm for re-education through labor in Qinghai during the anti-Rightist campaign. Finally he starved to death in a strange land when my father was just a child. A few years later, my grandmother died of illness on New Year’s Eve, and my father became an orphan. Fortunately, his neighbors helped him. When he grew up he worked hard to apply to college, but because of his family background he lost his opportunity for admission"
Education Badiucao had no formal training in art while in China.: "My first drawing was about the 2011 Wenzhou high-speed train crash. Before I started drawing cartoons, I had no formal art training." He studied law at the East China University of Political Science and Law. He and his dorm-mates accidentally watched the documentary The Gate of Heavenly Peace after it was hidden in a pirated Taiwanese drama. Disillusioned with China, he moved to Australia to study in 2009, becoming a citizen later.: "Unbeknown to them, the file had "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" – a detailed documentary about the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen square protesters [...] Haunted by this new knowledge [...] he left for Australia to begin a career satirising political suppression." He worked as a kindergarten teacher for many years.: "My current job is a kindergarten teacher.": "After a sidestep into teaching at a kindergarten"
Career Badiucao first political cartoon as published in 2011 and had the Wenzhou train collision as subject.
His works had been published in BBC, CNN, China Digital Times and Hong Kong Free Press; and also had been used by Amnesty International and Freedom House.: "A contributing artist for China Digital Times, his work has been used by Amnesty International, Freedom House, BBC, and CNN and has been exhibited around the world."
Badiucao's works have also featured exhibitions in the US, Australia, Italy,:Chinese dissident artist Badiucao opened his first solo show in the northern Italian city of Brescia on Saturday [...] will be on display in Brescia until 13 February. [...] The exhibition, which bears the title "China is (not) near — Works of a dissident artist," is on display at the Museum of Santa Giulia. Czech Republic: Despite Beijing's calls to shut down a show of work by Chinese dissident artist Badiucao, the DOX Center for Contemporary Art in Prague went ahead with the politically charged exhibition anyway. Titled "MADe in China," the exhibition is a continuation of Badiucao's previous solo show in Brescia, Italy, which Beijing also tried to cancel last year. and Poland.:il 16 giugno aprirà infatti presso il Castello Ujazdowski di Varsavia la mostra Tell China's Story Well, debutto istituzionale di Badiucao nel paese
According to a 2013 interview, Badiucao admired three other Chinese political cartoonists at the time—Hexie Farm, Rebel Pepper and Kuang Biao.: "The cartoonists I admire are Hexie Farm, Biantai Lajiao (Rebel Pepper), and Kuang Biao."
End of anonymity Until June 2019, Badiucao wore a mask at public events to maintain as much anonymity as possible.: "Now there is little reason to hide who he really is, he told AFP, and has abandoned the full face masks he wore at public appearances."
According to Badiucao, the Chinese regime may have identified him after a fellow dissident posted on X that he worked as an assistant to Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, which linked him to him.: "But they were able to piece together his identity after a fellow dissident revealed on Twitter he was working as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's assistant in Berlin."
In June 2019, Badiucao made his face public in a documentary titled "China’s Artful Dissident,": When China's Artful Dissident aired, it was the first time I’d shown my face in public, a huge step for me. as well as personal details about his life (such as his age, professional degree, and university he graduated from) because after Chinese authorities had identified him, his relatives were threatened and he no longer had a reason to remain anonymous.: "But three days before the Hong Kong opening, Badiucao said he was contacted by his family to say relatives in China had been taken by police for questioning." [...] "They got told I'm having this exhibition in Hong Kong and the message from the police is pretty clear: they want me to shut down everything." As Badiucao reported to Agence France-Presse, the harassment of his relatives could now be publicly exposed after his anonymity ended.
Style and approach Badiucao uses satire and pop culture references to convey his message. He often manipulates archetypal images from Communist Party propaganda to make subversive political statements.
He asserts that the government authorities in China are very concerned that their suppression of human rights activism is attracting attention from international media.
In an early 2016 interview, he stated that "Cartoons and portraits can create a unified visual symbol, which can help spread the message and attract sustained attention, in order to create pressure from public opinion. Maybe this pressure can improve the situation for those who are imprisoned, as well as comfort the family members of the persecuted."
Activism Badiucao is extremely active and often responds quickly to prevailing news and events in relation to mainland China, Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora. He also responds quickly to news and events relating to other authoritarian countries such as Iran.
In response to the PLA-aligned Kathy Chen being appointed the head of Twitter in China, Badiucao drew Twitter's logo, a bird, impaled on the yellow star that is a feature of China's flag.
Badiucao has supported other artists and dissidents. In 2013, in response to the rape of six students by the school's principal and a local official, Ai Xiaoming from Sun Yat-sen University posted a topless picture of herself on Twitter, holding scissors, covered in writing above her breasts, "Get a room with me, let Ye Haiyan go", conveying a strong political message.Zeng, Jinyan. “The Politics of Emotion in Grassroots Feminist Protests: A Case Study of Xiaoming Ai's Nude Breasts Photography Protest Online.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, vol. 15, no. 1, 2014, pp. 41–52. JSTOR, . Retrieved 26 February 2021. In response, Badiucao posted a cartoon in which she became a big pair of scissors, with gun barrels protruding from her nipples.
In early 2016, he created a series of artworks supporting Wu Wei, a former head tutor at the University of Sydney, who had resigned after an incident in which he referred to certain students from mainland China as 'pigs'. Wu Wei had used the character tun (豚), instead of the more commonly used character, zhu (猪). Online dissidents have co-opted tun as a slang reference to guan'erdai, the second-generation offspring of Chinese Communist Party officials.
In May 2016, the newly elected President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, was subject to an attack upon her marital status by Wang Weixing, a scholar with the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Badiucao highlighted the irony of the attack with a cartoon comparing Tsai's marital status to that of Xi Jinping, current General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.
After Xi Jinping toured state media, Badiucao depicted General Secretary Xi being greeted by a cast of monkeys and snakes. This alludes to the media's role as a 'mouthpiece of the Party'. The Mandarin term for mouthpiece (喉舌) equates to 'throat and tongue' and is a homophone for monkey snake (猴蛇).
In 2018, an art show about Badiucao was planned to be held in Hong Kong. However, the show has been cancelled due to "safety concerns" later due to threats made by the Chinese authorities regarding the artist. In 2019, a planned artist talk about activism with Hong Kong musician-activist Denise Ho at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne was rejected by the gallery for "security reasons." On the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, in June 2019, a documentary about Badiucao was shown on Australian television.
Badiucao created a "protest NFT collection" criticising China's human rights record and calling for a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics, created through the Art in Protest residency, a partnership between the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts and the Human Rights Foundation. In a statement, Badiucao said the series depicts "the Chinese government's oppression of the Tibetan people, the Uyghur genocide, the dismantling of democracy in Hong Kong, the regime's omnipresent surveillance systems, and lack of transparency surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic." The series shows athletes in Chinese uniforms tackling a Tibetan monk, skating over Hong Kong's flag, atop a surveillance camera, sliding a virus, and aiming a rifle at a blindfolded Uyghur. Five pieces were displayed in Miami, Florida during Art Basel Miami Beach in 2021.
Copies of the posters put up anonymously at George Washington University in February 2022 were reported to police and removed, with Chinese student organisations claiming they "incited racial hatred and ethnic tensions." Shortly afterwards, GWU President Mark Wrighton issued a statement, saying "Upon full understanding, I do not view these posters as racist; they are political statements. There is no university investigation underway, and the university will not take any action against the students who displayed the poster." Regarding the art, Badiucao told Axios, "My art is always targeting the Chinese Communist Party, never the Chinese suffering from this regime."
Political persecution and harassment Online harassment In 2016, Badiucao revealed that he had been the target of "large-scale" and systematised online attacks on two occasions, (as far as 2016) apparently with the intention of contaminating search results if his person or work,: "“In recent years, I have been subjected to large-scale Internet attacks twice," [...] "[T]these attacks are not from individuals, but are organized systematically. The goal of this kind of attack is not just to threaten me, but possibly to pollute search results for ‘badiucao,’ and to block the visibility of my cartoons online."" as well as to intimidate him.: "Although the threats initially worked and Badiucao was afraid,"
Threats to family and Hong Kong cancelation By November 2018, Badiucao was preparing his first solo exposition in Hong Kong under the title "Black comedy for Hong Kong, China and the world",: "Badiucao's first solo international exhibition and his first in a Chinese territory was scheduled for November last year in Hong Kong. Billed as a "black comedy for Hong Kong, China and the world"" but he had to cancel it after relatives informed him that they had been threatened by Chinese authorities.
Following in public spaces