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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jun/15/pussy-riot-nadya-tolokonnikova-police-state>
"Nadya Tolokonnikova, the co-founder of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot,
was sitting in a replica Russian prison cell in downtown Los Angeles when the
police started shutting down the streets around the art museum.
Police helicopters hovered overhead. Somewhere, through a loudspeaker, an
officer delivered a tinny order to disperse.
Tolokonnikova was only three and a half days into what was supposed to be a
“durational performance” reenacting her two years as a political prisoner in
Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
But Donald Trump had ordered national guard troops into Los Angeles, over the
objections of California’s governor, and the protests against immigration raids
that Trump wanted to target were happening just a block from the gallery where
Tolokonnikova was performing.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca) hastily decided to shut its doors. But
Tolokonnikova, 35, whose political art has left her as a wanted criminal in
Russia, chose to continue her performance inside the empty museum.
“Police State Exhibit Closed Today Due to the Police State,” she posted on
Instagram.
The situation “felt like I had entered a wormhole,” Tolokonnikova told the
Guardian the next day via email. She wanted to be out on the streets, but she
decided to finish her performance while live-streaming audio of the protests
outside into her prison cell. It felt important, she wrote, “not to bend to the
whims of Ice or the national guard”."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics