At the contemporary art space Container in Santa Fe, visitors to the installation “This Art Is A Hammer That Shapes Reality” encounter a giant projection of the film “Putin’s Ashes.” In it, women in black silk slips, fishnet stockings, long red gloves, combat boots and red balaclavas walk, dream-like, in the desert, and proceed to burn a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Their leader, Nadya Tolokonnikova, sports a white balaclava and a garment that resembles priestly vestments. She spits on the ashes and then collects them with a knife she created into jars labeled Putin’s Ashes, which are now part of various textile pieces in the show throughout the gallery.
“Putin is very afraid of magic and witchcraft,” said Tonya Turner Carroll, co-owner of Container. “She wanted to use every tactic possible to annoy him and make him uncomfortable.”
The show is the international premier of Tolokonnikova’s works. The co-founder of the Pussy Riot feminist protest art collective was imprisoned for two years following a 2012 protest inside a Moscow cathedral. She was 22 at the time with a young child. Putin has since declared her a foreign agent and she is on Russia’s most-wanted list.
Carroll said Tolokonnikova recruited women for the film who professed a hatred of Putin. Many were Ukrainian. She then used the ashes in canvases of brocade and fluffy fur.
“She’s presenting them using the sewing techniques she learned in Siberian penal colonies,” Carroll said. “She said it’s almost like a spell on Putin. Like, we are witches and we are performing rituals to make you die. And that’s really what she means.”
Tolokonnikova’s experiences inform most of this show. She was forced to sew police and army uniforms on broken sewing machines, which caused her to bleed on the material. Carroll said she was also forced to turn out the same amount in eight hours that other prisoners had 16 hours to accomplish.
New shiny sewing needles and other parts of sewing machines dot various works in the gallery, a nod to the new parts she longed for in prison and she can now buy easily. In another area of the gallery, a small house with pink fur trim is covered with melted medication bottles and anti-depressant pills, reflecting her ongoing struggles with PTSD and a major depressive disorder following her imprisonment.
A gallery of knives created out of materials prisoners would have access to covers three walls, trimmed in frames of fur. One piece proclaims that this art "kills fascists" — an homage to folk icon Woody Guthrie. In May, Pussy Riot received the Woody Guthrie Prize.
The show was only supposed to be up for a week, but was extended to July 20th before it moves on to other cities.
On opening night, Tolokonnikova was in person, wearing the signature balaclava of Pussy Riot and sitting in a replica of her prison cell. She spoke with KUNM about why art is one of the best ways to process trauma.
NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA: I'm turning my traumatic experience into my own art, and right now it's my choice to be in this prison. So it isn’t all bad. A lot of my art is my healing.
KUNM: You were forced to sew in the penal colony. How has that informed your show and some of the works in the show?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: I work quite a lot with textile. And it has two reasons. First reason is because for ages, it was just written off as low art or crafts created mostly by women. So I'm reclaiming that material as something that belongs to the high art world. And the second reason I use textile is because I was forced to sew military uniforms and police uniforms when I was in prison. And again, it's something about healing, I had to create this 100 pieces with knives in two weeks. It was a lot. And so my schedule was completely insane. Like I didn't eat, I didn’t have time to go to the restroom, take care of myself. So you would say that my body would go back to the same state as I was when I was in jail. But this time, it was with intention to create it myself. And it was deeply meaningful to me. So I believe that through this process, I'm healing not just my mind, but also my body.
KUNM: The fur, the fluffy materials – the content is jarring, but it seems like, you know, toys and fluffy things and fur. Can you talk about that?
TOLOKONNIKOVA:I'm influenced by my cat. He’s a black cat. He's an anarchist.
KUNM: Aren’t all cats anarchists?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: Yes. Especially black cats. So I guess for me it derives just from my obsession with contrast. In the very beginning, with Pussy Riot, when we were coming up with the name, we wanted the name to contain two words that usually would be seen as contrasting. Pussy is something soft, nice, a lot of people see it as weak I guess. I don't happen to agree with it, but they do. And riot, complete opposite of it. So a lot of our art pieces, and our image, our costumes, our statements, we would try to combine the opposites.
For example, we would sing Putin has pissed himself on the Red Square, but wearing colorful mini dresses at the same time and looking super feminine. It does just teach people that you can be feminine, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you're weak.
So as a young feminist, I went through that stage where I felt like I have to be boyish in order to be perceived stronger. And then I just got upset. Because I like to be boyish. I like to be feminine. I didn't like to deny myself from expressing myself in the feminine manner if I want to. So this fur – pink, fluffy toyish, cute -- I mean it basically reclaims femininity and also creates this contrast that I really love. And the art is still a comment on really serious and sometimes bloody matters. But it totally can be playful at the same time because this is our life. We can talk about serious shit, but also at the same time keeping joyful and playful and feminine if we choose so.
KUNM: Is that your blood in some of the work?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: For “Drink My Blood” I spilled my actual blood on the freedom certificate that they gave to me when I got out of jail, because it felt like the only adequate thing I can do with that terrible piece of paper. And so while I was sewing, my blood was spilling because I was sewing on broken sewing machines because they didn't have any spare details. So this I’m bringing in the spare details from sewing machines into my artworks because it was a dream of mine to get new details for the sewing machine. So finally I can. You can just go online and click a button, and it can deliver it to my studio. So I'm living my dream. And so the way my blood spilled on the table when I was sewing police uniforms, in the same way I spilled blood on my freedom certificate. All other works feature acrylic paint, it's not isn't my actual blood because I'm not up for self-destruction necessarily, and I don't support self-harm.
KUNM: You also started a media outlet Mediazona. How is that operating and covering events in Russia? It must be difficult.
TOLOKONNIKOVA: Pretty much, yeah. We had to evacuate everyone from Russia, since the beginning of the war. I mean, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia, Ukraine, MediaZona are all tied together. So we created it because Putin started his invasion in Ukraine 2014. So then, he destroyed pretty much every independent media that still existed in Russia. And we just got out of jail at the time and decided to create our own and we just combined all the journalists that left were left without jobs, because their media outlets were destroyed by the regime. We operate from outside of Russia, because it's would be just too dangerous for people to keep reporting on from the ground.
KUNM: I know you're living in exile, how are you helping keep the resistance alive in Russia with people who might be there?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: I cannot confirm or deny that I live in the exile because I'm geographically anonymous. So I'll just leave it at that.
KUNM: How do you support people who are still there?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: Well, with information, with money, sometimes and with inspirations for art,
KUNM: Pussy Riot is a collective. How big is it? Who's in it? Who is Pussy Riot?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: Anyone can by Pussy Riot, including you. It's a collective with open membership. I would say, I would argue there's almost a movement at this point. So people from Hong Kong to Brazil, and Chile really identify themselves as part of Pussy Riot. And sometimes I know these people and sometimes I don't. So as a founder and creator of Pussy Riot, I don't have any special governance power here. So if there is someone I don’t like in Pussy Riot I cannot tell them to fuck off. No, I cannot.
KUNM: I heard you say in your TED Talk, that telling truth is a moral act, and we need to use this power. Can you talk about that?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: When I was mentioning it in my TED talk, I meant that it's important to tell the truth, just because it's right morally. It does not bring here any profit. I mean, we're so used to live in consumer society and capitalist society. So we will want almost all our action to actions to bring us something to the good, like money or fame or recognition. So telling the truth is a little bit tricky, because it's sometimes can actually lower your position in society. But as long as you believe that it's a moral act, and it's important to keep pushing, it has to bring you happiness, and I guess, sense of fulfillment on itself. So let's say if I say something about my president go to jail for that. Not getting anything good in return. I'm still happy I did it. And I'm still radiating with happiness and smiling at the court, even though I'm in the worst possible position.
KUNM: What do you make of the recent chaos in Russia, with the Wagner group?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: Putin is much weaker than he used to be. It's an interesting fact that I served two years in jail for dancing and [Yevgeny] Prigozhin killed 12 people I believe in the recent uprising in Russia has and he totally gets to get away and just walk away from it. It shows that Putin only can beat people who are weaker physically than him. And I don't think it's a feature of courageous or a moral person. Also the fact that Prigozhin was able to walk -- his protest his riot almost reached Moscow -- really shows to me that there were other people who were on his side, like really powerful people from possibly Russian army who were on his side. And it shows to me that it's probably just a matter of time when we'll see something else of this nature happening.
KUNM: What do you hope people will take away from the show? What do you want us to do?
TOLOKONNIKOVA: I want you to speak your mind, feel good about it. I want you to be brave. Courage is an ability to act in the face of fear. My every day is a struggle between my fears, and my courage. And sometimes fears win and I believe it's totally fine. Like we're not superheroes, but just understanding these dynamics really, really helps. And Marina Abramović, who is one of my friends and teachers and advisors and gurus says that if you have an idea that is good enough, then you totally can make it work. And then you just forget about all of your fears, hesitations. I think it's true about pretty much everything. So if you truly believe in something, you can make it work. It's all about the decisions that you make for yourself and about how you’re gonna to live your life, and what do you want to leave off after you.
