Shilpa Gupta review – rousing reminder that free speech used to be a noble cause

Barbican Curve, London
With the words of dissidents pinned to walls, this thrilling new show lays bare the censoriousness of modern culture

When the Chinese dissident Liu Xia was under house arrest with state security guards posted at her front door, she wrote a passionate poem to her husband, Liu Xiaobo: “I’ll never give up the struggle for freedom from the oppressors’ jail, but I’ll be your willing prisoner for life.”

Shilpa Gupta has typed up these translated words on what looks to have been an old-fashioned typewriter. They are pinned to the wall beside her line drawing of the late Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel prize for his outspoken defence of human rights, was repeatedly imprisoned for challenging China’s authoritarian state, and died in custody in 2017. The following year the Chinese state allowed Liu Xia to leave for medical treatment in Germany, presumably to avoid a second outcry. Liu Xia’s moving poem of protest and love pulls you up. What a story! Where are all the plays and films about this extraordinary couple who told truth to power and spoke their love to one another?

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