Nadya Tolokonnikova in conversation with New Mexico Museum of Art Director Mark White, 29 June 2023

As a part of Nadya’s exhibition at CONTAINER in Santa Fe, she was in conversation with Mark White, Director of the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art on 29 June 23 in the St. Francis Auditorium in Santa Fe, NM.

Nadya Tolokonnikova – Pussy Riot

We meet Nadya Tolokonnikova of PUSSY RIOT, the legendary Russian feminist protest art collective. We discuss Nadya’s journey in art thus far and her monumental current exhibition in Santa Fe at CONTAINER space.

“While working with artifacts, bottling ashes, and manufacturing the faux furry frames for the bottles, I used skills that I learned in the sweatshops of my penal colony. I was forced to sew police and army uniforms in a Russian jail. I turned what I learned in my labor camp against those who locked me up. Putin is a danger to the whole world, and he has to be stopped immediately.” Nadya Tolokonnikova.

CONTAINER Turner Carroll is bringing Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs “wanted list” Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova to Santa Fe. The exhibition Putin’s Ashes will transform CONTAINER into a kind of war zone.

Pussy Riot’s Putin’s Ashes was initiated in August 2022, when Pussy Riot burned a 10 x 10 foot portrait of the Russian president, performed rituals, and cast spells aimed to chase Putin away. Twelve women participated in the performance. In order to join, women were required to experience acute hatred and resentment toward the Russian president. Most of the participants were either Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Russian. Nadya Tolokonnikova bottled the ashes of the burnt portrait and incorporated them into her objects that are being presented alongside her short art film Putin’s Ashes, directed, edited, and scored by Tolokonnikova and co-produced John Caldwell.

Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova: Mutiny against Putin shows ‘the emperor is, in fact, naked.’ Interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell

This video was a live feed from Nadya’s exhibition, Putin’s Ashes, at CONTAINER in Santa Fe, NM on 1 July 2023.

Nadya Tolokonnikova Playing Music from A Punk Prayer at the St. Francis Auditorium in Santa Fe, NM

As a part of Nadya’s exhibition at CONTAINER in Santa Fe, she was in conversation with Mark White, Director of the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art on 29 June 23. This organ piece was spontaneous, and delicious.