Weiwei: It's so nice to be back in this city, and, of course, you have a very different perspective every time you come here.

But it's very nice to be in this Clinton Global Initiative and to talk to Hillary and talk about things in general.

You were imprisoned in China in 2011, which I remember well.

Can you share with us some of the ways that you've dealt with these moments of personal challenge?

How do you find the energy, the resilience, the motivation to keep going?

To precisely tell what is in the mind is so important in today's society.

I always thinking that's been given me as the opportunity to challenge me to get into much deeper thinking about what I'm doing and why I'm doing that.

Once you firmly believe what you're doing, there's no fear.

The fear always belong to the other side.

Each of the individual have to realize they have not just the rights, but also it's very essential for everybody to express themself individual and as well as a society.

So freedom of expression always need to be encouraged.

We have to find out the difference between individuals, and also we have to find a common ground.

I'm doing all kinds of things.

I'm doing documentary and exhibitions and also doing a lot of interviews and traveling and preparing new, coming-up shows -- Museum of Boston and many other locations.

I did "Good fences make good neighbors" in commentary to the refugee crisis.

If we talk about New Yorkers or people from the United States, we're all refugees from somewhere, a certain moment of history.

So we should understand the refugee situation is a human condition.

Optimism is only come from how we understand the individual's rights and humanity.

Without that, there's no possibility because we can be even more divided.

If anybody being hurt, we are all being hurt.

So we have to defend those very essential, common foundations of humanity unless we are not going to win the battle.

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