Conceptual performance artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova is the creator of Pussy Riot, a global feminist protest art movement. Today, hundreds of people identify as a part of the Pussy Riot community.
In 2012, she was sentenced in 2012 to two years’ imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance. Nadya went through a hunger strike protesting savage prison conditions and ended up being sent far away to a Siberian penal colony. There, she managed to maintain her artistic activity and, with her prison punk band, she made a tour around Siberian labor camps.
In 2018, Nadya published a book Read and Riot: Pussy Riot’s Guide to Activism. She is a co-founder of independent news service and media outlet, Mediazona, co-founder of the art-collecting collective Unicorn DAO, she was instrumental in raising over $7 million for Ukraine, she spoke before the US Congress, British Parliament, European Parliament, appeared as herself on season 3 of House of Cards, and performed at Banksy’s Dismaland exhibition.
Pussy Riot’s Punk Prayer was named by The Guardian among the best art pieces of the 21st century (“feminist, explicitly anti-Putin, protesting the banning of gay pride and the Orthodox church’s support of the president”), was endorsed by Marina Abramovic, Judy Chicago, and Ai Weiwei, and was created into an immersive experience in London’s Saatchi Gallery. Recently, Nadya curated the auction My Body, My Business at Sotheby’s.
