I'm not a writer, but today I think you have to be everything. As an artist you have an obligation to let people know what is on your mind and why you're doing this.
Many people I know - writers, poets - they have all been sentenced not once but sometimes three times after they come out. They serve five or six years, come out another time, and then nine years. Come out again, 12 years. Only because they have a different opinion. They are innocent people, they have beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.
Mass production is nothing new. Weren't cathedrals built through mass production? The pyramids?... Paintings can be painted with the left hand, the right hand, someone else's hand, or many people's hands. The scale of production is irrelevant to its content.
I think you can give meaning to any condition; you can be poor or unsuccessful or be so-called successful. But I don't think that it would give an individual human being a better condition.
My mother became much older when I came out (ed's note: of detention). She had problems with her hearing and high blood pressure. But they still support me.
The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.
Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.