Nadya Tolokonnikova is the first speaker in the Project for Eastern European Relation's annual lecture series: Activism Under Totalitarianism. Visit our website to learn more. www.easterneuropeanrelations.com
Tolokonnikova is a founding member of the feminist punk collective Pussy Riot. In 2011, Pussy Riot began staging unauthorized guerrilla performances to promote gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and opposition to Vladimir Putin. In 2012, Tolokonnikova was convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” after being arrested during a performance in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. After nearly two years in a prison labor camp, she has continued creating protest music. Along with fellow Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina, she founded Zona Prava, which provides legal defense and counseling to those threatened by unlawful actions taken by corrections officials, investigators, or judges in Russia. She was named a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International, and received the LennonOno Grant for Peace in 2012, as well as the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought. Her first collaboration with producer Dave Sitek (TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs), “Chaika,” was released in February 2016, and her debut EP, xxx, released in October of the same year.
This event made possible by the William J. Cooper Foundation, Russian, Modern Languages, Theater, History, Music, Gender & Sexuality, Philosophy, English, Global Studies, the President’s Office, the Provost’s Office, the Sager Series, the Urban Inequality & Incarceration Program, Swarthmore Libraries, the Lang Center, the SBC, SPEER, and Bryn Mawr Russian.
Nadya is introduced by Roman Shemakov and interviewed by Jose Vergara.
