Editor’s Notice: This story is a part of Newsmakers, a brand new ARTnews sequence the place we interview the movers and shakers who’re making change within the artwork world.
Greater than a decade after Pussy Riot cofounder Nadya Tolokonnikova was imprisoned in Russia for 2 years after performing a “punk prayer” inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the artist is placing herself again into a jail of her personal making.
For her set up Police State (2025) on the Museum of Up to date Artwork in Los Angeles (LA MOCA), Tolonkonnikova has recreated a Russian jail cell. This time, nevertheless, she reimagines the cell as an area for artwork. The work is a type of reclamation not just for Tolonkonnikova but additionally for all of the Russian, Belarusian, and American prisoners whose work can also be included within the set up. The hassle to incorporate them is a component of a bigger ongoing mission between Tolokonnikova’s group Artwork Motion Basis and the Creative Freedom Initiative, which work collectively to archive and exhibit prisoners’ artwork.
Associated Articles
Throughout the piece, guests are thrust into an eerie authoritarian state. Inside a jail cell, one can observe Tolokonnikova making music or artwork, and even resting all through the day, through safety digital camera footage and peepholes. Initially, these sights had been meant to be seen solely between June 5 and 14, however the present was prolonged as a consequence of the museum’s closure amid anti-ICE protests and the deployment of the Nationwide Guard.
ARTnews spoke with Tolonkonnikova to listen to about staging this set up throughout ongoing political battle within the US and overseas.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability and concision.
ARTnews: How did you first conceive of Police State?
Nadya Tolokonnikova: I believe the start line was this concept I had about 5 years in the past of reclaiming my jail expertise as an artwork piece. I started fascinated about my jail time from 2012 to the tip of 2013 as one of many longest durational efficiency items in artwork historical past. That was my solution to reclaim the time my authorities stole from me. I wished to make them my bitches—not the opposite method round. The day after the USA elections, the [associate] curator of efficiency and packages on the Geffen, Alex Sloane, wrote me.
Nadya Tolokonnikova: Police State, 2025, efficiency, on the Geffen Up to date at MOCA.
Photograph Zak Kelley. Courtesy LA MOCA.
Stroll me by means of what you’re doing as you carry out in Police State.
Every day begins at 11 a.m. and runs by means of the tip of the workday, which is usually at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., and as soon as, on a protracted Friday, went till 8 p.m.
I enter the cell a bit earlier to prepare, and I put all of the stuff as a substitute. Generally I’m altering the artworks that I’ve on the partitions as a result of I’m displaying loads of artworks by present and former political prisoners. Then, I placed on my uniform and headband, as all Russian feminine prisoners need to put on them in jail—it’s a brilliant patriarchal norm and the legislation in Russia—and, should you refuse, then you definately’re not eligible for parole.
As soon as the day begins, I rotate between two tables. I stuffed them with every little thing I wished to have in jail however couldn’t. I’m fulfilling my goals round this concept of: what if jail might be place of creation? I’ve been considering rather a lot about rehabilitation versus punishment, and the way we are able to transfer towards the previous. How can we assist rehabilitate individuals by means of artwork? I’ve been in contact with lots of people in several nations who run these packages.
One desk is for audio manufacturing, the place I combine and primarily produce music on the go. It’s a mixture of various layers. The bottom layer is that this deep subbase that penetrates your physique. I wished to create this very visceral feeling, earlier than layering totally different sounds on high of it. Then, I took precise jail sounds from a number of jails in Russia. There are human rights teams who make movies of this torturing obtainable on YouTube. I downloaded them, and I present the video footage on the TV within the set up and overtop I’m enjoying this very ambient, but disturbing soundtrack. There’s one other layer that’s extra nostalgic to me, with outdated Russian lullabies my mom used to sing to me. Generally I play the outdated recordings or I sing them in a microphone that I’ve. Different occasions I play them on this little pink piano that’s on the desk.
On the second desk is a really outdated 1921 Singer stitching machine that I discovered on the road and made it work. Once I was within the Russian jail camp, I used to be stitching navy and police uniforms. So, I wished to recreate that a part of the expertise of being in jail as properly, however with my very own twist. I connected some issues, like lace and teddy bears, to the police uniforms to make them much less menacing and to nearly neutralize them, together with slogans and phrases which have which means to me, like “alien”, “revoked”, “ghosts”, “deleted”—mainly all the sentiments I’ve had as an individual who was pressured to go away her house and attempt to discover it elsewhere.
Artworks by political prisoners in Nadya Tolokonnikova’s 2025 efficiency set up Police State, on the Geffen Up to date at MOCA.
Photograph Yulia Shur. Courtesy LA MOCA.
What does it imply to point out this work in the USA proper now?
It’s surreal. When the protests first broke out, it was solely my third day of Police State and the museum closed. I made a decision to remain till the tip of the workday as a result of that’s what I agreed to, however my husband, John Caldwell, went to the protest and dwell streamed the sounds of protests. Now, as a substitute of the unique Russian jail sounds, I layered the sounds of the protests to create new soundscapes. The recording is chilling. There was one activist speaking about this nation turning into Russia. However we acknowledge having navy on the streets. I’ve years of preventing with the Nationwide Guard in Russia underneath my belt. Once I lastly left the museum that day, there have been strains and features of police tear gassing and capturing peaceable protestors with rubber bullets. The bullets had been flying so near me and, since they don’t do this in Russia, I had by no means skilled that earlier than.
I felt like these two days, when the largest protests had been taking place, had been just like the scene from a 2001: A House Odyssey the place the character flies by means of multi-dimensional worlds. I felt like time and house had been twisted on this ugly geopolitical authoritarian dance, the place I’m experiencing as soon as once more what I did earlier than. America began to remind me of Russia in 2011 and 2012, once we had this large protest in opposition to Putin. We believed that we might save the nation, after which we weren’t in a position to do this. From there, all of it went downward. I simply actually hope that folks right here within the US have the capability and persistence to defend this democracy. And your complete Pussy Riot motion is able to assist as a lot as we are able to.
What do you hope individuals will get out of Police State?
I need them to return expertise it. It sucks that we are able to’t run it in every single place, unexpectedly. We’re sort of tied to this large metropolitan metropolis that understands every little thing anyway, however I need individuals to make their very own conclusions—that’s the primary level. I don’t need to put any concepts of their head. There’s room for interpretation.
How does it really feel to place your self in a sort of police state by yourself phrases?
Your entire set up has this uplifting, nearly church-like high quality. I play loads of spiritual music, largely Gregorian chants, which might be sort of unhappy on the one hand but additionally really feel like they nearly convey you to heaven. And so, by means of this horror and sounds of the police state, we have now this stunning, angelic choir to assist us transcend this second.
I need to encourage individuals to talk up and use any devices they’ve—whether or not it’s artwork or one thing else. This second jogs my memory of Russia in 2011 and 2012, when it felt like there was a possible for us to truly develop into democratic. I’m not an historian and I didn’t know what went incorrect, however I really feel like Individuals nonetheless have loads of room to specific themselves and to train their rights. It’s not as unhealthy because it might be and because it is perhaps sooner or later.
There’s work by present political prisoners on the wall of the set up that I would really like individuals to witness. If these individuals have braveness to make their political artworks from the literal Gulag, the place they might be murdered, like Alexei Navalny, they usually can overcome such terrifying circumstances by means of the act of creation to point out this, then every of us can too.
Nadya Tolokonnikova: Police State, 2025, efficiency, on the Geffen Up to date at MOCA.
Photograph Zak Kelley. Courtesy LA MOCA.
Inform me about this collaboration with prisoners.
There are two works. One is in collaboration with nameless prisoners in the USA and Belarus. I sourced cloth produced by these prisoners and used that as a substitute of canvas within the set up, on high of which I put my very own calligraphy. One of many works says, “The final one right here. I’m going to be the primary one in heaven.” I suppose that is the temper that I’m experiencing currently rather a lot—it’s unhappy, but additionally weirdly uplifting. One other options the signature Pussy Riot balaclava and I write in Russian the phrase, “They won’t undergo,” which was the slogan by antifascists in opposition to Basic Francisco Franco through the Spanish Civil Struggle within the twentieth century. The fascinating half about acknowledging the ache that one has to undergo with a view to combat the system of oppression can also be the sweetness and the hope of it. In the end, the group is the place the place I get most of my energy.
As I discussed earlier, I additionally function artworks by prisoners on the partitions of the set up. Some that stood out to me embody the portrait of a lady in jail by artist Asya Dudyaeva, who’s serving three and a half years in Russia for distributing postcards in opposition to the struggle in Ukraine; an anarcho-kitten by poet Artem Kamardin, who’s in jail for seven years for studying poetry on the streets of Moscow; and a bleeding banana work by Anya Bazhutova, who’s serving 5 and a half years for talking out about Russia’s crimes in Bucha, Ukraine. This little exposition of political prisoners’ work is a component of a bigger, joint mission with my group Artwork Motion Basis and the Creative Freedom Initiative that I’m tremendous obsessed with. Our mission is to stop art work by artists from susceptible teams from being erased by archiving and exhibiting the work.
