Welcome everyone to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.

Thrilled to be opening the season today.

We're back.

Yeah, I like you guys already.

I really do.

My name is Christina Hamilton, the Seri Director, and I am thrilled to to p of what promises to be a great se We have a dynamic roster of guests to challenge and inspire you, details of which are listed in season calendar, which is available in the lobby, and you should grab or you can always find us at penniestampsevents.org.

Sign up to receive an email or join us on social channels at Penny Stamps Series, but plan to be here every Thursday Today, we welcome back to the series artist, activist, and Pussy Riot founder, who obviously needs no introduction, Nadia Tolokunikova.

Yes.

Nadia was here with us nine years ago, shortly after she was released from prison, and we're very excit catch up with her today.

But first, a big thank you to our partners for their support of the Arts and Resistance LS&A Themes semester, which we'll be hearing a lot UM Democracy and Debate, and the UM Arts Initiative.

So today's show is going to come with a little variety.

We're going to to day with a short video work of Nad and then Nadia will make an address directly to you, and then I'll join on stage here for a bit of a conversation, and eventually we'll g floor up to you.

You can see there's microphones at the ends of the two and when we get to that mo come and line up and see if we have time for us to get to your question.

For folks up in the balcony, if to join for the Q&A, please do do wnstairs and line up at a So for just a few words of introduction and to catch you up with what's going on with our guests today, Nadia Tolokunikova is the creator of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist art collective, and she gained global sh e was sentenced to two years of prison for performing punk prayer, an anti-Putin performance that she and rioters staged at the altar of a cathedral in Moscow.

She then started a hunger strike in prison protesting the conditions i she was held and was ultimately s She was released then in December 2013 after tw She is still and has always been a long-time thorn in Putin's side.

She was declared recently in 2021 a foreign agent by Russia and is most wanted by Putin.

She's made herself geo-anonymous ever since, and many other members of Pussy Riot active in Russia have also been forced to leave the country since the start of the war in where protesting in Russia is pretty m impossible without having a lengthy prison sentence waged against you.

Still, she continues on with her unique brand of political resistance, incorporating gorilla gigs, music videos, visual art, performances, and experiments with the egalitarian potential of Web 3.

Yes, she is a Web 3 guru.

She's also co-founder of the Independent News Service and media outlet an d co-founder of Unicorn DAO, which is a collector's decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to collecting a incubating NFTs created by female non-binary and LGBTQ plus artists.

Unicorn DAO was launched following her work on Ukraine DAO, which she raised over $7 million in crypto for Ukraine at the start of the Russian invasion.

She has spoken before the US Congress, British Parliament, European Parliament, and recently she was awarded the Woody Guth Yeah!

What a woman!

She puts her whole being into resistance, and as Peter Verzalov said, "You cannot change the world as a hobby on weekends."

So without further ado, let's watch Putin's Ashes.

If this works for me... (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) (speaking in foreign language) (audience applauding) (audience cheering) - August 17th, 2012.

You're standing up in a cage handcuffed.

The judge reads your sentence for f Your cage is surrounded by nine guards in balaclobas, and a guard dog is angrily barking at She's trained to be suspicious t who smell like prison.

You're stripped down from your humanity.

You're reduced to being just a prisoner.

I was 22, and I smelled like prison.

The prosecutor asked to give me three years for making political My crime is classified as a severe one.

It means the judge can give me up to seven years.

As the judge reads my sentence, I'm thinking t can one person make a difference?

Is it even worth trying?

Am I setting myself up for a failure?

Am I, will I inevitably be smashed by the system?

I ran away from home when I was 16.

I moved from a little provincial city in Siberia to Moscow.

I was 16, and I was a drummer.

I wanted two things, to dream wildly, and to make my utopian dreams come true.

For that, I knew I needed to be in Moscow.

I studied philosophy, and I was stealing food and clothes in order to survive.

At 22, I was thrown in jail for going against one of the most danger politicians, dictators My daughter turned four on the day when I got arrested.

What is my crime exactly?

I sang a song, Virgin Mary, please get rid of Putin.

Five of us, Pussy Riot members, preached in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, from the spot that for thousands of years was reserved only for male preachers.

We sang our punk prayer in response to Putin announcing that he will rule Russia pretty much forever.

I dropped everything, and I gave myself a prom that I will dedicate my life to resistance.

Putin equals death, humiliation, torture, a knife in the back, imprisonment, darkness, eternal winter, stagnation, the new dark ages for Russia.

To resist, we used our brains, courage, balaclava's loud voices, borrowed guitar and bright dresses from our friends, and per We shared the truth with people of Russi performing guerilla style, no permits, on the squares, government buildings, public We would be arrested almost e but we get out of a police st and go back to the streets.

Our goal was to show Russian people tha is indeed an option.

The supreme sacred holy role in Russia is to remain afraid.

We decided to break this rule.

By breaking the main rule of the game, we disrupted the game as such.

We shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system.

We demonstrated that living a lie is exactly what it is, living a lie.

We said that the emperor is naked.

Did we achieve what we wanted?

I was thinking about it while I was standing behind the bars and listening to the judge reading my sentence.

Yes and no.

As I said in my closing statement, even though we are behind bars, we are freer than the people prosecuting us.

We can say what we want, while only what political censorship allows.

Despite the global move we were sentenced to two years of hard The hell was in front of me.

I was forced to sew police and military uniforms, getting injured while doing it.

But even in the moments of I knew that my fight is not over.

Two years later, we'll get out of prison alive.

And I will meet thousands of inspiring young Russians who will tell me how our courage inspired them to resist.

Over the next 10 years, Puzi-Reyat will continue to build the netwo effective resistance.

In 2014, we'll launch one of the biggest free of censorship media outlets in R that is thriving up to this day and is at top five biggest independent media outlets in Russia.

(audience applauding) In March, 2022, we raised $7 million for Ukraine.

(audience applauding) When reproductive rights were under attack we raised close to a million dollars for Planned Parentho (audience applauding) We raised $2 million to collect works, artworks, by women and non-binary artists as unicorn doll.

And I wish I could tell all of that to the 22-years-old ver who was standing in a cage and listening to this harsh prison s two years in jail.

Much of work remains to be done.

In Russia, my friends and family have been beaten, jailed, poisoned, murdered.

In March, 2023, I was added to Russia's most wanted list.

I'm facing new criminal charges for art I You've just seen it.

On the screen, it' And the screams that you've heard in the end are screams of a person being in a Russian police department.

I became a threat to the system, not because of any physical o but because courage is contagious.

Just one act of speaking the truth might cause incalculable transformations in social consciousness, and we all have this power.

It's a moral act to use this power.

It might bring results you wanted, it may not.

But there is internal beauty in making this leap of faith and stop calculating profits, and risking everything you have for what Courage is an ability to act in the face of fear.

For some of us, living courageously is a choice.

For others, like our comrades in Ukraine, it's not a choice, it's a matter of surviva Putin is embarrassed due to Ukraine chose democracy.

Russian army bombs hospitals, maternity wards, schools, raping and killing civilians and throwing their bodies Putin and everyone who supports him must be stopped.

(audience applauds) Putin is a war criminal.

And I cannot wait, I cannot wait to see him in HOG in the International Court of Justice for his crimes against humanity.

(audience applauds) Russia has to get the fuck out of Ukra (audience applauds) Donbass, Crimean, is Ukraine, and I will not stop until Russia is 100% out of Ukraine, and I believe we should do everything that's in our hands in order to support Ukraine.

That's why I'm supporting not just humanitarian efforts of Ukraine, but also military efforts of because that's the way how they p from an aggressor.

Putin did not just strip me away from my freedom and I'm not going to stop him fr my freedom and men He stole my identity.

I don't know anymore what does it mean to be a person from Russia.

I used to be proud of being Russian.

Now I am ashamed.

I'm eternally saddened that we were not effective enough, that we were not able to get rid of Putin at the right time before it's too late.

My homeland is stolen from me and I don't have identity anymore, but unlike many other colleagues of mine, I still have the pr My brave colleague and Thai-Putin activist, Karamurza, who was sentenced in penal colony for publicly denouncing Putin and the word in Ukraine, said in his closing statement, "I know that the day will come when the darkness engulfing our country will dissipate.

This day will come as inevitably as spring comes to replace even the frostiest winter."

And I'll finish this short speech with the words of 22 years.

You're a 22 years old version of myself who hoped for a beautiful new Russia of the future standing in the cage.

Passion, openness and naivety are superior to hypocrisy, cunning and contrived decency that controls crim Thank you.

(Applause) Well, let's jet now.

Well, it's really an ho and let us catch up with you again and see how much you continue to grow and transform with your work.

Doing my best.

This can be better.

Yeah, you're doing your best.

I think so.

You're now geo-anonymous, but it's very obvious that your home is in your convictions and your clarity of purpose and with art clearly as your tool, your certitude is very inspiring.

Yeah.

(Applause) However, I know that we have a lot of young students in the audience here who maybe are not in such clear waters.

And they're trying to figure out who they are and what their voice is.

So I wonder if we can go back and you can connect us, as you just did a lot, to this time in your life when you're a teenager and you moved and you find yourself getting invo And what was it?

When was it that you really "O h, wow, this is my calling.

pe rformance artist."

Was there a clear moment or an early protest?

It's never really clear, I think.

I mean, rarely.

I think it's fictional People mostly rationalize I think it's just like always I was really drawn to performance art ever since I learned about it.

And I learned about it by... almost by chance, because I was living in this super small provin where usually we don't even have books on contemporary art.

But luckily, it was that moment in 2006 when Russia was still trying to be a kind of modern, enlightened state.

And so this sister, amazing woman, the sister of oligarch, who's a terrible But his sister is great, as it happens with women So she brought this festival to my It was performance, conceptual art, and I've learned about it because of t So it was real If I was three years later, I wo uld not learn about it.

But I right away captured this moment of freedom that I felt from these performers w Because I felt like, you know, I suffered from the fact that everyone around me treated themselves their lives way too seriously.

And I think it comes from the fact that it's really difficult to be an adult.

And I understand that it is.

So you just like turn into this pers who is treating everything so seriously.

And it was difficult for me to relate to it somehow as a teenager.

So I see this playful adults who are in their forties and fifties, but they're still playing.

And even though it is difficult st ill have to pay their bills and make living someho they maintain like they, I guess it is the goal of their existence to maintain this playground.

Life is their playground.

And I've decided that I want to just be one of t And I was, I guess politics came kind of together with it.

It's not necessarily part of it.

I think it's just anot that came probably from my father.

And I guess my mother as well being really involved with Perestroika and being really interested in changes, then getting really disillusioned with everything when Putin came to power.

And I kind of, I guess, took it from them because we would always have political magazines in our house, which was not a comm So Putin was always, has been a real progenitor of your motivator for you, even from the very, very beginning.

From the beginning, I didn't like him.

I don't know.

I though like a fish from Canne like a dead person.

I did not like him.

I was 10 when he So my first reaction was bad.

And then he canceled my birthday because my birthday is on the day of Russian and he doesn't like an connected to political chang So he canceled my birthday to school on my birthday.

So that was my fir The real root.

We get t OK, so I forgot the clicker.

So I have, but I think I can get through this So I know, you know, one of the things I'm curious about with all your co-r when you formed the group, you know, you're closely together And then now in this situation where you're all sort of displaced and uprooted around the world, st ill able to collaborate together or are each of you really has this caused each of you sort of to be really working Pr etty much independently.

We were not banned in a classica so we were just, you know, people with their own trajectories And we came together for a specific purpose and then just still do things when it makes sense.

But for the most part, we just lead our brittle lives.

OK, so I, you know, obviously, here's the famous moment before the arrest.

And there is this moment that I have to ask you about when you were going through the yo u were getting sentenced.

And during sentencing, you made a statement to the prosecutor.

I knew that was going to happen.

This is a funky little thing.

You made a statement to the prosecutor sort of saying, "Well, I'm really the one that's free because I can say everythi And you are actually the ones th being censored by the system because you're, you know, sticking with the system here.

And then, you know, you...

This moment becomes this global, you know, attention on you.

And so it's like this moment The powers that be are try you and put you away and put you in a But you leverage this moment and...

This seems like an essent who's going to be a politi So how, from behind bars, if you can ki of just explain in the primer of like, what does one do when one's arrested and get the global media attention?

How did you do that from behind bars?

Are you preparing for Trump beco No, right?

I wish we didn't have to have this skill.

And I never intentionally wanted to have this skill.

And I know artists who were prepar it very intentionally from the beginning of conceiving their actions, they would know that it... Like my friend who burned the door of FSB building on the bank... Well, he used to be Long story.

Did wrong things.

So he knew from the beginning that he's going to be dealing with the system.

So I wasn't that kind of artist.

I was thinking that we're going to be able to get away from it.

Because we had this conversation within our group, should we do symbolic actions or should we actually destroy property?

Should we burn police cars or should we do symbolic things?

And I was on the side of, let's do symbolic stuff, because it's going for the government to put you in jail fo And if they do, they're going to look like asshole which like Plan B worked.

I was not totally prepared for it, but I think just by living in Russia and reading our...

In reading Russian dissidents and learning Russian history, you realize that one of the an d kind and smart and educated people they always somehow end up in prison for this sort of political article.

Like you look at this the Yevsky, who is the most known person from Rus or Tolstoy, he didn't end up in jail, but he was... What is Anaphima?

I didn't know how to say i Anyway, he w this sort of religious trial and they told him he cannot be part of the Orthodox Church anymore, because he's blasphemous.

The Yevsky was sentenced to death, and then he just magically got out of it.

Anyway, so he learned about all of it, and then Pushkin got in trouble as well.

So everyone who has conscience and I guess heart in Russia, they end up in trouble anyway.

So it's not the goal of your verse school to teach you that, because they definitely not like rebel boot camp by no means.

But I think if you really look hi story, you understand that maybe it can be part of your history as well, if you're going to be good enough as an artist, as an artist who wants to be honest with herself.

And so when we ended up in jail, the calculation was really simple.

You had just one moment when wi th everyone, because they could not even w If I write things down, ev be taken away from me.

So they really tried to erase physical freedom, but my internal freedom, which I thought I owned, b So I could learn by heart probably a lot of things, but I don't have good memory.

So I was writing things myself, like I was trying to memorize.

It was really difficult not to have any sort of outlet.

So the court hearings were the only outlets when you can actually legally because legally it's just like my last statement, so you cannot take So I guess the reason striking for a lot of people, because it was something that was brewing inside of us for six, eight months.

And then finally, just... Wow.

I hadn't realized that, that you couldn't write I could write, but then they would come and search and just take everything.

So then I think I'm still struggling with PTSD from it, because it just gave me this feeling, like, oh, everything I do is kind o pointless, because it's going to b And that's why cops constantly, ev they got out of jail, they wou apartments, like studios.

Whatever we try to do, try to shoot a music video, they shut it down.

And so everything we tried to do, you try to do a queer party.

You could try to do a fundraiser for queer people in Russia, for queer people in Chechnya.

Everything gets shut down.

And then after a few yea just feel like, oh, well, everything I do is pointless Yeah.

So moving to the current moment, your recent work has really expanded in form, from actions and performances to object making.

You're making objects now.

And you just have had installation, which first was at the Deitch projects in LA, very fancy address.

And then recently was in New Mexico at Container in Santa Fe.

And I want us to go through and look at some of the work and talk about it.

But there's a term in this I've heard you talking, whatever, and news stories about this, you talk about the total installation.

And I have this picture still up for a reason, because one of the parts of this installation is a recreation of your cell.

And also it was on hunger strike, all that photo was taken, like the previous one.

I was on hunger st person came to visit me.

And I was on hunger strike against eight year, eight, fucking, sorry.

And 16 hours workday and terrible living conditions, no access to medical help, for not just for myself, but for every other prisoner.

And yeah, and I was just isolated in this cell because I asked myself to get myse because the way they punished me before, they punish me from other people.

So if you're my friend in jail punish not me, but you, they strip you from your right to have a parole.

And then I feel te to serve four years in jail, like four t years in jail because of me, becaus being friends with me.

So I said, just isolat one person cell and so you cannot influence me through others.

And so this is the recreation of the cell in the exhibition.

And this is another image of it with the lighting, which is striking the th e light, everything.

But yeah, can you talk about what thi term total installation and what that means to you?

There's this amazing artist, Ilya Kub Some of you probably know him.

If you don't, Google Ilya, Ka-ba- It's totally amazing.

Like he's one of the most famo to say living Russian artist, but he jus earlier this year.

And he's one of my teachers, gurus.

We never met in person, but he's just spiritually always with me.

And he came up with this idea of a total installation that you work with a white cube of a gallery or a museum and turning it into something completely different and recontextualizing making the...

I mean, it's kind of similar to Bertolt's idea of breaking the forest wall because you feel closer to the creator of the installation.

And he did it in response to...

So he started to work in America because he moved out of the USSR before... 1950, 1980, 1985, I think.

So it was towards the end of the USSR, but he still didn't know that it's the end So he was lucky enough to be able t move, but he was just like, "How do you explain to the Westerners the whole wh at I was doing back in the USSR?"

Because before he was doing much more laconic and cryptic pieces, like just super simple drawing.

And then he was them with the whole cont created Disneyland type experience for them to really... Not because they're stupid, but because they don't know the experience o Soviet apartment that he knew.

So for him, the breakthrough at the Western scene for him was this installation that he did in G And he recreated this toilet made of concrete with an installation of a typical Soviet apartment inside.

It's like Soviet people live in shit, ki That's odd.

And everyone was like, is so genius, oh my God."

And I think it was genius.

So I think he's the only one who uses this turn, total installati up, picked it up from him.

And also, to me, it's...

I guess it just makes simpler the transition from performance art, from performing, getting the Soviet style on the stre with it in a context of wide cube, because I still struggle with it at times, because I don't understand what is this wall standing here for?

Let's look at some of the walls in the insta These are shanks, right?

Prison shanks.

It's knife b Well, I didn't do it in jail, because I would not be able to brin jail.

But they're But the idea is to create something that you can protect yourself with in jail.

But also, it just honestly derives from very banal move of...

So we would open can of whatever piece, and you save this cap, and with this cap, you can cut something else have knives when you're So this is the simplest form of this shank or shave, which is also featured in this series.

Yeah, these are...

I'm really curious about the choice o the fur on the frames.

If you think about name Pussy Riot, we had just recently a conversation with Girillia Girls, and I tol stole the name from them, becaus was like, "Did you know about Girillia Girls when you invented Pussy Riot?"

It was like, "Yeah, duh."

He stole the name from the a combination of something...

I mean, it doesn't matter how you read it, Girillia or Gorilla, it's And Girls, which is traditionally whatever, sexist stereotypes about And Pussy Riot is the same as something nice and soft and welcoming, whatever, and right.

So I like to combine different, I guess, mediums and messages and make them pretty contrast.

And so fur, I guess, stands for this nice and feminine and whatever, and you don' anything bad to happen, an very radical statement inside.

Yeah.

So this is what, moving through mi ddle of the space.

I mean, I guess I need to understand that a little more in some of t I was lookin sent, since I didn't have the gre go to this exhibition, which I hope I have... We'll make i No, we'll just make an exhibit together.

Yeah, it has to happen again.

This needs to be seen by many more people.

But anyway, beca white cube, but I'm not.

Was it really... Or this actually like an oblong container that all of this is in?

Yeah.

together, and that's how they did the space.

It's a pretty awesome idea.

Tell me about the barrels, too.

The barrels.

It happened just b And I work with this Ukrain They work with me from the beginning of Putin's ashes, and they just brought a bunch of barrels, because he was just like are gonna look s And then he was just like, "Just paint them.

Just paint them."

I Like, whatever.

We h things to focus on He was just like "Whateve I like her.

There She just d And I did it days before the opening.

There's more barrels.

Okay, so this piece... Tell us about this doll's house.

It's called Haunted.

And this piece happened because, well, I struggle with mental health, as it happ with people who went through Ever since... Was I here in 2014?

Sorry?

Yes, you were.

You were her So I wasn't myself, just for the record.

I was out of my mind.

I was so depressed.

And I didn't recognize that I depressed, because unfortunatel that strong people don't get depressed.

And I was thinking, "No, I'm strong."

It's like, no, whatever.

We never had this mental health educ I never had it.

I ended up going through a number of doctors that fall, and I felt horrible.

And I was like, I just feel like I'm going to An d they're like, "No, but..." They made all sorts of s of me, but I was total And they gave me these pills.

I was like, "What is it?

Antidepressant I was like, "No, I didn't nee I can regulate my own mood."

Well, long story short, I'm still on Cymbalta, which looks just like this.

And I tried to get off it multiple times.

It's really difficult.

If you ask me, it's a very difficult thing.

Honestly, I think it saved me at the time, but then later it got me addicted to it, which is not good as well.

So if you can just.. And there are a lot of young people here.

Maybe some of you are into neuroscience Can we please learn more about brain and how it functions and how it can... And can we invent something that does not make us addicted?

Because I've tried to get off them multiple times, and every time I'm like, "I'm like this guy who's melting."

So this piece is about my trauma and big pharma, because then I studied a lot of lawsuits for going against this lily.

I believe this pharmacy company, big pharma company, and they always settle the lawsuits as it always happens in America some So this mental health type beat.

So this show, or the "Putin's Ashes," the film that we watched, is very much a part of this.

The whole show "Putin's The total installation.

And so this is what has now got you on this foreign agent list.

And what is...

I was trying to read about this to understand what this means And it sounds like there's a lot of requirements and things that su pposed to be doing because you' list Can you explain?

My official comment about it was "LOL" and "editsivzhopon," which means in Russian, "go to ice."

It's going to fuck you in Russia So most of the Russian dissidents, they don't really follow that law.

Well, it's okay.

Being on the foreign agent list is a drama, but it's not such a big drama for Because drama for me is to be on Russi most wanted list, which just comes...

I've heard about it at first, and I was like, "Oh, well, this is so An d then I realized that it comes with a pretty heavy price.

So I cannot travel in a bunch of countries that can work with Russia on extraditing me, for example, Indonesia or Armenia, or a lot of other countries who are close to And honestly, I don't even know about B I used to love traveling there, perform So there is that.

And al person right now because I'm rejected by the Russ government.

This is the only p If any of you know how to get American passports really qu Seriously.

There must be a way.

I just don't know But I'm literally...

So if I lose my passport, I'm just fucked.

Because I cannot get another one from R I hope the expiration date is a long way away.

I don't know.

I hope that Biden will be like, "Oh, yeah.

She's just suffered enough, so we'll just give her a passport."

Yeah.

Yeah, you need a passport.

So basically...

So Biden, by the way, I'll gladly I know he's in a lot of troubles right now, but maybe tomorrow.

So, you can't...

So basically, for you, homeland is impossib It's possible you go to Rick the Jew.

I mean, I...

I mean, go b homeland with your freedom.

This is not possible.

I mean, do you think in some way if Putin...

If Ukraine wins the war, and there My only hope is for Ukraine to win the war.

That's why it's not just Ukraine's It's my war, and it's worth everyone who wishes Russia the best.

So really, I don't count on Putin dying suddenly, because he has good medics.

He's in...

I mean, he cannot really base actions on expecting somebody to just die suddenly.

So I just think that he probably will stay around for a while.

And I really think my best chance is just for Ukraine to win, because the reason why he fought Uk that he names as the reason he, by the way, changes official reaso But he got jealous that they chose freedom, and they're on the way to become just a regular European country.

And he knows that a lot of Russians want that as well for Russia.

People like me, but so many ot We dreamt...

I mean, we thoug would become just a normal European coun when I was eight, I was thinking that's my last visa I have to get to enter France.

Because I was thinking, oh, visas It's just so dehumanizing.

I have to prove that I'm be autiful enough, great enough, like I d stay in Ukraine.

It's It's terrible.

So I was thi we'll be part of Europe.

And a lot of people still want it.

And so Ukraine would be effective, and I think it would But it still can happen.

Yeah, it's gonna happen.

It has to happen.

So I love this image because Judy Chicago is amazing.

And by the way, folks, Judy Chicago is opening a big show at the new museum i New York.

But anyway...

I want i Part of this expansion of your work has also been you've been coll of fantastic peopl And you've also gone beyond your core mission and your work resisting and protesti and his actions.

You've actually taken issues that are hot button issues in in the United States, li reproductive rights with the overturn of Roe v. Wade last year.

And I'm just interested to hear some observations and reflections from you o We can't necessarily always see ourselves, and you're coming out from a very different perspective, and you've been working now and doing projects in this country for a while And I'm curious about landscape of artists and activists and how you see land of the free.

How free is the land of the free Do you see people taking for granted the freedoms they have, or do you see, "Oh, free s is alive and well, and resistance is robust."

What is your reflection o Well, I'm not trying to be s But if I can just say, I have a freedom to complain.

So we will be found out with We have in common, we love to An d we made our art into art of complain I think before the first Trump term, there was definitely a problem th like young people are taking for gran freedoms they have here because they were mostly gained by someone else, like their parents or their grandpa I feel like Trump changed it a lot.

So many people live in it, especially artists, live in a tough economic situation here, a they don't have safety net.

And it's not a country that works on building this safety net, like free healthcare or education, affordable And I feel like just because political art just exposes you to so many more risks.

Like today I was told that actually my insurance company charges me three times more than everyo else just because I'm a That's ridiculous.

And I was just like, well, I'm not able to pay this amount of money.

So let's just say to them, I could be political.

I know that generally political art doesn't sell as much for as much as non-political.

So well, long story short, I understand people who do not want to be super vocal about political issues, but I also would love to see much bigger movement and more coordinat global scale.

What I really loved about Russian civil life when we still had one, I wouldn't say that we still have it becau everyone was destroyed.

But at the moment of possibil it was kind of doable, we were building a lot of coalition And I feel like this is the best way to show your government that it's time for them shit their pants because and we're not here to fight with each other.

I mean, sometimes to fig other, but general here to support each o and this image ended.

When reproductive rights failure happened with this country, I was really upset b I spent two years in jail, not just for going against Putin, but also for being a femin It's in my prison sentence.

They say being a feminist goes against traditional Russian values.

So it means she's corrupted, blasphemous, but she's really dangerous for society and she has to be separated from two years in order to get better and then after it is back.

So I was just talking ab Theano is a philosopher astronomer from Alexandria and she was burned and tortured by Christian fanatics in third or fourth century, I believe.

Anyway, so the reason I was talking about it because she features i The Dinner Party in the Brooklyn Museum.

You should go to the Brooklyn Museum and see it if you haven't.

And so there was a funny kind of story with Theano.

I wrote down a note about her and then my investigators found it and they said, oh, she's dangerous for society.

She's blasphemous.

She is against Christian country because she wrote about Theano being burned by Christian fanatics.

Anyway, so when that thing happened, when Rowie Wade was overturned i I was really upset b like, oh, well, this i kind of a fucking because I just, I got two years in my own country.

Here is the country where I do a lo my projects and I have a lot of friends a goes into shit So I'll try to do something.

So what we did is just raised money, but obviously it's not enough.

I think building alternative system and really building alternativ it's something that we need and access to abortion pills because really when our government let us down, we just have to build our own alternative government.

Yeah.

That's a perfect segue actually to my last question for you because I've heard you refer to yourself as an anarchist and I've also heard you talk about alter globalists and the alter globalist movement, for those of you in the audience wh before, it supports global cooperation but opposes the ef fects of economic globalization, but it doesn't completely oppose a free market.

So do you see in the future, if the future could be what you want, do you see that we have a potential borders where we leave the nation state and empire building behind?

And I'm very curious how the economy works and if this is where web3 and blockchain come in.

That's a big question fo This is when I wished I li mother and studied economy.

We all should have done that.

Yeah, becaus become lawyer or economist and at the t thinking this is the most th e planet and now I'm like, no, I need to know exactly those two things.

My mom was right.

I didn't know how it will work exac but Vitalik Buterin talks a lot about it and he's comrade economist Glenn Bile who's more on the libertarian side.

So I didn't necessarily agree ev erything he says, but you probably can just listen to them talking about it or my conversations with Alec Buteri I do think just to me from the bird's eye view, I do think that nation states, well, they were formed and they like imaginary communities, right?

They were formed not that long time ago and at some point they will be not dissolved.

They probably will be still part of our identity, but they will play much less role that they play now because even today they feel really, really abusive for no reason because I always hate thinking that this glass has more rights than I do because this glass can travel to the UK and I canno because I don't have a visa.

That is not a good position to be in.

I hope you can get a passport.

I have to push you though to talk a little bit about Web3 and blockchain and i that has any potential economy to get how do we, because we are completely ruled by this market economy and thes corporations, what can blockchain do for us?

I'm a really humble person I just use it for my own purposes.

I'm not really a spokesperson for Web3, but I came with a very simple goal to be able to capture these amazing new tools for activism, what I believe in.

I think what's good about Web3 is also simultaneously as it happens, also the same bad about it.

It's unreg It means that on the one hand when y need to send money to Ukraine real can do it.

You need to to U You can use blockchain for that.

When the war in Ukraine started, we were looking into ways how to raise money for it quick and effectively.

Traditional sources like Indiegogo, Patreon, they all blocked and just froze in accounts of people who were raising money because They didn't know how the Amer government will, I mean whatever, any other go will look at it.

Is it funding war?

Is it buying weapons?

Because some of this money may We had to look for other ways.

Blockchain, at least for now, offers you more flexible solutions.

You have to use it consciously and you have to do your own research.

Because it's unregulated, nobody is going to check for you if you're not going to check for yourse So I would not recommend it to everyone.

But I found that in a situation when corporations or governments try you to stop from doing something, blockchain can be a really useful resource.

Okay.

Well, I think we can open And thank you, Nadia, for all of your thoughts.

I hope we can have you back again.