Editor’s Notice: This story is a part of Newsmakers, a brand new ARTnews collection 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 Modern Artwork in Los Angeles (LA MOCA), Tolokonnikova has recreated a Russian jail cell. This time, nonetheless, 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 an element of a bigger ongoing undertaking between Tolokonnikova’s group Artwork Motion Basis and the Inventive Freedom Initiative, which work collectively to archive and exhibit prisoners’ artwork.
Inside 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 digicam footage and peepholes. Initially, these sights had been meant to be seen solely between June 5 and 14, however the present was prolonged because 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 feel 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 by my jail time from 2012 to the top of 2013 as one of many longest durational efficiency items in artwork historical past. That was my approach to reclaim the time my authorities stole from me. I wished to make them my bitches—not the opposite manner round. The day after america elections, the [associate] curator of efficiency and packages on the Geffen, Alex Sloane, wrote me.
Nadya Tolokonnikova: Police State, 2025, efficiency, on the Geffen Modern at MOCA.
Photograph Zak Kelley. Courtesy LA MOCA.
Stroll me by way of what you’re doing as you carry out in Police State.
Every day begins at 11 a.m. and runs by way of the top 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 replacement. Typically I’m altering the artworks that I’ve on the partitions as a result of I’m exhibiting plenty of artworks by present and former political prisoners. Then, I placed on my uniform and headband, as all Russian feminine prisoners should put on them in jail—it’s a brilliant patriarchal norm and the regulation in Russia—and, should you refuse, you then’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 desires round this concept of: what if jail might be place of creation? I’ve been pondering so much about rehabilitation versus punishment, and the way we are able to transfer towards the previous. How can we assist rehabilitate folks by way of artwork? I’ve been in contact with lots of people in several international locations who run these packages.
One desk is for audio manufacturing, the place I combine and primarily produce music on the go. It’s a mix 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 completely 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 out there on YouTube. I downloaded them, and I present the video footage on the TV within the set up and overtop I’m taking part in 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. Typically 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. After I was within the Russian jail camp, I used to be stitching army 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 emotions I’ve had as an individual who was pressured to go away her dwelling and attempt to discover it elsewhere.
Artworks by political prisoners in Nadya Tolokonnikova’s 2025 efficiency set up Police State, on the Geffen Modern at MOCA.
Photograph Yulia Shur. Courtesy LA MOCA.
What does it imply to point out this work in america 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 top of the workday as a result of that’s what I agreed to, however my husband, John Caldwell, went to the protest and reside streamed the sounds of protests. Now, as an alternative 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 army on the streets. I’ve years of preventing with the Nationwide Guard in Russia underneath my belt. After I lastly left the museum that day, there have been strains and features of police tear gassing and taking pictures peaceable protestors with rubber bullets. The bullets had been flying so near me and, since they don’t try this in Russia, I had by no means skilled that earlier than.
I felt like these two days, when the most important protests had been occurring, had been just like the scene from a 2001: A Area Odyssey the place the character flies by way 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, after we had this enormous protest towards Putin. We believed that we might save the nation, after which we weren’t ready 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 the whole Pussy Riot motion is able to assist as a lot as we are able to.
What do you hope folks will get out of Police State?
I need them to come back expertise it. It sucks that we are able to’t run it in all places, abruptly. We’re type of tied to this large metropolitan metropolis that understands every little thing anyway, however I need folks 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 type of police state by yourself phrases?
The whole set up has this uplifting, nearly church-like high quality. I play plenty of non secular music, principally Gregorian chants, which can be type of unhappy on the one hand but additionally really feel like they nearly convey you to heaven. And so, by way of this horror and sounds of the police state, we now have this lovely, angelic choir to assist us transcend this second.
I need to encourage folks 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 turn into democratic. I’m not an historian and I didn’t know what went incorrect, however I really feel like People nonetheless have plenty of room to specific themselves and to train their rights. It’s not as dangerous because it might be and because it is perhaps in some unspecified time in the future.
There’s work by present political prisoners on the wall of the set up that I would really like folks to witness. If these folks 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 way of the act of creation to point out this, then every of us can too.
Nadya Tolokonnikova: Police State, 2025, efficiency, on the Geffen Modern 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 america and Belarus. I sourced cloth produced by these prisoners and used that as an alternative 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 assume that is the temper that I’m experiencing currently so much—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 towards Common Francisco Franco throughout the Spanish Civil Battle within the twentieth century. The fascinating half about acknowledging the ache that one has to undergo with a purpose to battle 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 power.
As I discussed earlier, I additionally function artworks by prisoners on the partitions of the set up. Some that stood out to me embrace the portrait of a lady in jail by artist Asya Dudyaeva, who’s serving three and a half years in Russia for distributing postcards towards the warfare 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 an element of a bigger, joint undertaking with my group Artwork Motion Basis and the Inventive 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.
