We asked artists in China about censorship. Here’s what they told us.

We interviewed artists in China about censorship and self-censorship in artistic practice, focusing on how uncertainty, social expectations, and platform governance shape what can be expressed and how. This includes how themes related to the body, health, and intimacy are shaped by these dynamics. The reflections below include one in-depth interview and additional anonymized testimonies that echo recurring patterns across conversations.

Self-censorship emerged as a defining thread across these discussions. Before any post is removed, permit denied, or keyword filtered, creators often describe an earlier moment of quiet adjustment—editing language, softening imagery, or redirecting themes in anticipation of possible consequences. Over time, this anticipatory process becomes internalized. When boundaries remain uncertain and constantly shifting, self-censorship becomes less a conscious decision and more a learned creative instinct that shapes both form and content from the outset.

The following interview is with “Chen” (pseudonym), with additional reflections from “Lin” and “Mei” (pseudonyms), artists and filmmakers based in China. Pseudonyms are used to protect the contributors given the sensitivities surrounding censorship and cultural expression.

Tell us about your work. How do you approach filmmaking and art, and what themes or questions tend to guide your practice?

“My work uses experimental narrative to look at memory, identity, and power—especially what gets left out of official stories. Form follows that: fragments, gaps, repetition, and small details that carry meaning without over-explaining. I’m interested in how large forces—history, policy, gender roles, class—show up in ordinary life. The goal isn’t to deliver a thesis; it’s to build a space where complexity can stay intact.”

As an artist from China, how has your personal and cultural context shaped the stories you are drawn to tell?

“China’s cultural context often makes ‘what can be said’ and ‘what is lived’ feel like two overlapping realities, and that gap shapes everyday speech and relationships in subtle ways. That’s why I’m drawn to indirect communication—silence, euphemism, coded gestures, and the emotional logic beneath them. It also shapes form: when direct language is risky or reductive, you learn to hold contradiction without stating everything outright. For me, the work often stays close to the tension between public narrative and private experience.”

Are there artists, filmmakers, or cultural figures in China who have influenced your work or way of thinking, and what draws you to them?

“Among many examples, two figures I often return to are A Cheng and Lou Ye. They treat censorship as part of the reality—not just an obstacle, but a force that shapes language. A Cheng’s stripped-down writing relies on understatement: politics arrives through ordinary behavior, silence, and what’s left unsaid. Lou Ye’s films insist that private life is political—desire, grief, intimacy—and that insistence has real consequences for how the work can circulate.”

From your perspective, what does censorship look like in China today?

“Censorship in China today often looks less like a single ‘no’ and more like a system of friction—paperwork, platforms, and an atmosphere that trains people to anticipate consequences. On the official side, it can be very practical: scripts that need to be filed, shoots that need permits, locations that suddenly become ‘not possible,’ or a project that can’t move forward without approvals for legal production and public release. I’ve seen peers rewrite scenes not because anyone gave a clear order, but because one vague comment—‘this might be sensitive’—is enough to reshape the whole plan.

On the platform side, it’s quieter: posts disappear, keywords stop returning results, accounts get limited, comments get turned off, conversations get ‘cleaned up.’ And then there’s the social layer—the phone call, the ‘friendly reminder,’ the suggestion not to forward something, the way collaborators suddenly prefer not to put things in writing. In my experience, the most powerful part isn’t always the explicit rule—it’s the uncertainty. When the boundary keeps moving, self-censorship becomes a default.”

In addition to this testimony, we interviewed other artists in China about how censorship shapes artistic practice and everyday expression. Their reflections echoed similar dynamics around anticipatory self-censorship within Chinese society.

Lin (pseudonym)
“China is a context where people develop a strong awareness of how words and images might be received, even before anything is made public. That awareness naturally enters artistic practice. When I begin a project, I’m already thinking about interpretation, visibility, and the potential impact on others involved. Self-censorship doesn’t feel like a single restriction; it becomes part of the creative method itself. Ideas are not necessarily removed, but redirected into metaphor, atmosphere, or indirect storytelling so they can exist within the social environment they come from.”

Mei (pseudonym)
“In everyday life, expression is shaped not only by formal rules but also by a broader shared sense of what is considered sensitive or appropriate at a given moment. Because these boundaries are not always clearly defined, artists often learn to anticipate them. This anticipation affects how we imagine a work from the start—what tone to use, how visible a message should be, or how long it might realistically circulate. In that sense, self-censorship becomes less about silence and more about calibration, a way of adjusting expression so it can remain present rather than disappear entirely.”

How do themes related to the body, health, or intimacy appear in your work, and how are they received in public or artistic contexts?

“These themes usually enter my work indirectly, through everyday situations rather than explicit representation. The body, health, and intimacy are often present in small gestures, routines, or emotional atmospheres instead of being addressed directly. This approach comes from both artistic preference and from observing how such themes are received in public and digital spaces, where interpretation can shift quickly depending on context.

Because of this, I tend to think carefully about tone, framing, and visibility. It’s less a question of whether these themes can appear, and more about how they can remain present without being reduced, misread, or made to disappear. In that sense, working with the body or intimate aspects of life often involves a quiet calibration, where meaning is carried through suggestion and form rather than direct declaration.”

How do you navigate censorship in your creative process?

“I navigate it on two levels: practical strategy and artistic language. Practically, filmmakers based in China often plan early for where a film can live: some projects aim for an official domestic route, while others are built for independent circulation—often through international festivals. You also see people seeking international co-production or overseas support to keep a project finishable and screenable, or choosing to shoot outside the country when locations, permits, or subject matter make domestic production risky or impossible. At the same time, many keep crews small and protect collaborators, because the pressure isn’t only about the film—it can also be about who gets exposed.

Artistically, I’m careful about how meaning is carried. I lean on structure, omission, metaphor, and the body—ways to stay emotionally precise without turning the film into a slogan that can be easily reduced or flagged.”

As culture and everyday life in China continue to shift, what changes are you noticing around cultural erasure or the emergence of new cultural forms?

“What I notice is that cultural change in China often comes down to what becomes visible and rewarded. Everyday life is shaped by policy, platforms, and markets, and what doesn’t fit those systems becomes harder to keep in public view.

On the erasure side, it’s not only disappearance—it’s reformatting. Urban renewal can preserve a place as an image while removing the living social fabric that made it meaningful. Public memory also gets pushed into fragile spaces—group chats, private archives, short clips that can be deleted or made unsearchable.

On the invention side, new forms are real, but they grow inside the same incentives. Livestream e-commerce created a new vernacular—performance, intimacy, speed—but it also shows how quickly expression gets reorganized by platforms. The critical point for me is that censorship today doesn’t only prohibit; it curates—what gets amplified, what gets packaged, and what gets quietly buried.”