Wanted

The upcoming exhibition by Nadya Tolokonnikova (b. 1989 in Norilsk, Siberia) explores art as a form of defiance and survival. As an artist, activist, and creator of the feminist collective Pussy Riot, Tolokonnikova has spent over a decade challenging authoritarianism through radical artistic expression. Persecuted for her conceptual performances, she gained international recognition with Punk Prayer (2012), a protest in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which led to her imprisonment in a Russian penal colony. Since then, she has continued to use art as a weapon against oppression—through performative works, installations, objects, and music. Tolokonnikova has forged a visual language that rebels against conservative realities: anarchic, radical, yet deeply affecting. In 2024 the OK Linz museum held the first ever solo museum exhibition of the works of Nadya Tolokonnikova. At the center of the upcoming exhibition stands a reconstruction of Nadya Tolokonnikova‘s own prison cell — an oppressive, claustrophobic space that served as the backdrop for her two- year-long „durational performance“ of incarceration. Within the bars, she places original letters, legal documents, press reports, and photographs that bear witness to the brutal conditions and psychological strain she endured. Through this deeply personal yet politically charged installation, Tolokonnikova transforms her experience of imprisonment into an act of defiance—reclaiming agency over her narrative while exposing the inhumanity of the system that sought to silence her.

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Weydingerstr 2/4

Berlin, NY