Nationality and borders are barriers to our intelligence, to our imagination and to all kinds of possibilities. (60)
When you shut off the border, you become part of the criminal act. (61)
The border you see on the map is not a real border. The real border, the economic border, is never there. It would be a very different map. These borders are only there to stop the most victimized human beings seeking their next meal for their children. (10)
Allowing borders to determine your thinking is incompatible with the modern era. (62)
The border is not in Lesbos, it is in our minds and in our hearts. (63)
Humans create the most ugly fences. (64)
Nationality started as something natural, but we should not be restrained by old politics that make up these lines. Nationality should have its own way of evolving. In some places, it will evolve slower and in others, faster. It’s like the mountains, the ocean and the rivers. It has its own geological forms. Societies cannot be flat. (60)
I hate fences, any kind of fence. It stops people, it separates people, and it makes so many lives so difficult. (65)
Borders are there to tear down. As an artist, I constantly come across them: aesthetic, philosophical and social boundaries that limit my work. (66)
When I fight for human rights in China, I never think only about human rights in China. I think about human rights everywhere. Human rights is the value which I believe is universal. (67)
Today the whole world is still struggling for freedom. In such a situation, only art can reveal the deep inner voice of every individual with no concern for political borders, nationality, race or religion. (68)
What’s important to remember is that while barriers have been used to divide us, as humans we are all the same. Some are more privileged than others, but with that privilege comes a responsibility to do more. (69)
Civilization has evolved toward more acceptance, understanding and tolerance of global thinking. If we accept differences, our creativity booms. (60)
Thousands of people are stuck here. You can’t believe this is happening in Europe in the 21st century. (70)
The fence can be between neighbors to divide, to set up some kind of border. It’s about territory, about dividing to push the others away or stop others from crossing. Generally, it reflects a misunderstanding of humanity. (71)
Building these walls is a ridiculous act. The emperor of China built the biggest, longest Great Wall. Now people only laugh about it, because it’s tourist ruins. It doesn’t defend anything, and it’s a permanent reminder of the insulting of human dignity. (32)
Our biggest danger is that we still see the world as a divided one rather than a total one. In that case, when tragedy happens, you think it’s someone else’s problem. (72)
Fences or territories always relate to our identity, our understanding of ourselves, and our attitudes towards others. (73)
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, 11 countries around the world were cut off by border fences and walls. By 2016, some 70 countries had built border fences and walls. The U.S. is now trying to build a new wall with Mexico and for me this is unthinkable. This solution has never worked and it testifies to the notion that we have become less courageous. (74)
People are not hiding their shameful ideas. They’re even proud to show them. The idea, “America First,” openly boasts of the superiority of the United States. All of those ideas are so out of date. It means you discriminate and dissociate yourself from the rest of the world. You have the wrong image and the wrong approach to the human condition. (75)
What shocks me the most are the people who are so privileged in Europe or elsewhere who are not taking the refugee condition seriously. (23)
The physical borders are very different from the political borders, because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest is in what move. (23)
I think that human societies are like geographical divisions: mountains, rivers. But in our minds and in our hearts, we don’t have to have borders, we only have to recognize humanity as one. (76)