BERLIN (AP) – Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is embarking on a three-year guest lecturer job at a Berlin university, declaring that he will include a project on refugees in his teaching but that he doesn’t plan explicitly to address human rights.
Ai, who was detained in China in 2011 and released after 81 days in jail, is starting the guest professorship at Berlin’s University of the Arts more than four years after he was named to the post and three months after Chinese authorities finally returned his passport.
Ai said Monday he’s chosen 16 students for his course. He told reporters: “I’m not encouraging any students to be like me.”
He said he plans to go back and forth between Berlin and China “under the condition that they let me in and out.”