PASAZ

“In March 1968, there were meetings at the School about what was going on. I attended one of the peaceful demonstrations. I was president of the School’s Union of Foreign Students, which allowed me to get involved and keep up to date.

As an artist you realise you can’t trample freedom. Freedom is crucial for artists, and secondary to power.

At the time, I was really caught up in contradictions.

I was in favour of socialism, and in fact, when I arrived in Poland, it was clear that there were a certain number of acquired rights: healthcare, schooling, work for everyone…. Whenever I was ill, I didn’t have to worry about treatment: it was free, like education, which was open to everyone and of good quality.

But another very visible thing was the lack of freedom. Maybe if I’d been studying medicine, let’s say, I would have noticed it less. But as artists, we were aware of the lack of freedom. Even at our level, we realised that there was a reticence around certain subjects…. We’d learn that such and such a film had faced problems…. At the time, we really didn’t understand what could justify that attitude...”