I have always used the burqa because men are using the burqa in the name of culture and religion to take freedom from women. Women are alive, they have their own wishes and desires, but all the time they have to sacrifice that. They are a kind of skeleton, which doesn't have muscles. They're just breathing, like a kind of puppet that barely exists. If women spoke for their rights, they were beaten by their husbands. So they don't have a voice. They lose their voices and their wishes and their happiness.

If a woman is wearing the burqa, it's not her wish. It's more that she feels secure from the Taliban, secure from acid if she were to show her face.

If I start talking about my own hopes, it'll take hours. The biggest hope is that there's not any more discrimination between men and women. That women could have equal rights. It's very painful when you see in your family that a brother can do anything he wants, but at the same age, you can't.

The burqa is a way of controlling the woman, but in the name of respect. Every culture or religion gives a different name for the burqa. It is honor, or culture, or religion. Really, it just controls the woman and keeps her inside.

All the work I did was to challenge politics, culture, and women's rights. I felt like I really wanted to break out. That's why I wanted to use graffiti. It's more open. I don't need people to come to an exhibition. Graffiti gives a voice to the walls.

If people say harsh words to me though, I don't care. It's a risk to my life. The Taliban don't want us to be working, so they'll shoot us. And women who break their rules, they put acid on them. I said, if they shoot me, OK, but if they put acid on me, I will be alive as a dead body. I was always so afraid of that.

In Afghanistan I was doing street art because it was more open, but when I had a show, only men would come. I said, I'm an artist not only for men, but for women too. So that's why I like graffiti.