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.
