Our curator Michaela Seiser, she's with us. And there is also another exhibition, as I have to let you know, we are running in fact as a digital museum, a virtual version of us, which is in Metaverse of Vauxhall. And it's called DFC, Digital Francisco Carolinum. And this was a kind of starting point also for this exhibition, for the physical one. And our digital space is directed by Julia Staudach. Julie, she's also with us. Thank you very much for everybody to come to this talk. We have an opening tomorrow evening, I guess at 7 or so and then afterwards is a performance as I guess you saw a few stuff there over there so I guess it will be a very cool unique performance now they I have almost 15 questions as I told you there 10 but they became 15. And if you want to skip a question, don't worry, just let me know. We skip to the next one. But if you could answer at least say 9 or 10, it would be amazing. All right. So let's start with the first one. How did your artistic career begin? First of all, thank you so much for not being afraid to host me here. Seriously! No, it means a lot, it takes courage. So many art institutions are so afraid of anything that's connected to politics and today today, when I talked to press, many asked me, how do you feel about working with institutions? Because I've started as anti-establishment punk. But I said, when the institution is fully on your side and there is no censorship, the opposite, they encourage you to be fully yourself. That's pure pleasure. And, you know, in the end of the day isn't it all our job to become the new establishment so the new kids can come and kick us out kick our ass um so yeah thank you uh how did my art adventure started i I was growing up in a family of artists but my mother had to give up her artistic intentions because she got swamped by economic realities and I think she has deep grief about it she does not like I diagnosed her with this grief like she she's just angry at the world but I think deep inside she wanted to be an artist but she just couldn't she had to earn money and my dad um no matter in which shitty economic situation he would find himself and he would rather eat bread and water but still be an artist. So I was growing up in, I mean, it was from a father's side, a literacy, always just deep admiration for art in all forms of art, architecture, music, literature, poetry, religion. Also would go to cathedrals and Catholic, Orthodox mosques, synagogues, Krishnits would explore all like different versions of culture. So at the time when I, when it came time for me to decide who I want to be, well, after the phase that everyone goes through like I want to be a paleontologist and astronomer I said I just want to do weird stuff in my life and it's called being an artist What motivated you to found Pussy Riot and what were your goals at the time? It happened in 2012, 2011, in October. Putin announced that he's going to become the president of Russia for the third time. And it's not usually how it works, at least when it comes to democracies, usually there should be elections. But it's not the case in my country. there should be elections, but it's not the case in my country. At that time, I was not new to political performance art already. I was working within Vojna, the collective I co-founded in 2007. And we worked in pretty much the same genre, political performance, guerrilla protest actions. One of my favorite works of Vainá is Storming of the White House. We wanted to show people that even 10 kids could storm the White House. Imagine what happens if 100, thousand or a million people come to this house, like the power will change instantly. We jumped, we projected skull and bones on the canvas of the White House of Russia, the parliament in Russia, and jumped through the fence, broke some security cameras, a mistake, and then ran away and nobody ever found us. So those kind of things were totally doable in Russia in 2008. It's not the case anymore. So by 2011, when Putin announced that he's going to become the president once again, I already knew how to do this stuff, and I could make political actions with my closed eyes. If you wake me up in the middle of the night, it was pretty much the only thing I really knew how to do. So I was so devastated with the news that Putin is with us. What I understood at the time that Putin is with us. What I understood at the time pretty much indefinitely. So I don't really know how this knowledge came to my pretty young mind at the time, I was 21. But I just was very shaken by this. I knew that Russia is going to go into the new dark ages, that people are like like a lot of people are gonna die and I could feel it in my bones I didn't know exactly how it's gonna happen but yeah so there was Putin on one hand and on the other hand the lack of feminist and gay rights action in Russia in 2011. Today, obviously, it's the situation of seven wars. I've been participating in Russian gay pride, what is just called gay pride. In fact, it's just a few people coming to the square, getting beaten up by right-wing, and then dragged by the police to a police van and spending the next 12 hours in the police station. Pussy Riot was a very simple idea. We wanted to give people an opportunity to join the movement. In the beginning it was just me and my friend Kat and we tried so hard to fake that it's a movement we would always find a third one but then she would be like ah it's too much because you're getting arrested every single day it's so annoying and but it it mostly worked after we ended up in jail because really the idea that you know the set of tools is very simple you can put on a mask put bright dress colorful tights some edgy boots and go to the street it really captured minds of a lot of people in the world so Putin really didn't achieve what he wanted instead of didn't achieve what he wanted. Instead of silencing us, he really paradoxically gave us voice when we ended up in jail. In 2012 you were sentenced to 21 months in a Siberian labor camp for a performance in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral. How did you experience your time in prison and what were your biggest challenges? It was wonderful. Well, it started as a really fun adventure. We've learned a few days after the performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior that there is a criminal case. And we decided not to give in and go and run. And it was very cool. It was like in movies, but even cooler. It's just like 360 immersive theater. Run away from Russian cops. And Putin giving orders to capture you with this incredible adrenaline, knowing that you're actually fucking succeeding and escaping from him. So it lasted for about a week, which is a really long time. We obviously stopped using our phones instantly. We bought another very cheap phones and they had an internal network. You obviously cannot call anyone outside of this network otherwise the police is gonna capture you. So long story short after seven days we got caught and the police was very impressed by our skills and running away from them. I was put in a room with this guy who was supposed to guard me but he was around my age, I was 22 and he just started to talk to me and I talked to him and he was just like, you did really well like do you know how many people were looking for you and that our bosses were so mad we could not capture you and they were really happy and celebrating so it started fun but then you realize that you're in you're in jail for months then two months and then you're facing seven years, and you're 22, and when you get out, you might be almost 30. And it feels like, you know, my adult life started when I was 16, when I ran away from home to study at university. So seven years was longer than my entire adult life at the time. So I started to be kind of anxious. And also there is no much, no many books to read. You think about jail as a place where you can, like almost like a monastery where you can read, introspect but in Russia often the jail the prison authorities try to strip you down not just of your outer freedom but also of your inner freedom in a sense that they take away your personal ratings and don't allow your relatives and friends to pass you books that you really want to read. So I ended up with pretty much just the Bible for six months. But I made the most of it. I learned a lot of passages by heart. I made notes. And so here in Al-Kailin's app, you can see some of those prisoner archival papers that I was able to smuggle out of Russian jail and then out of Russia. And you see these notes. It was pretty organized about it. So I invented my own systems of symbols. This one is anti-feminist this one has anarchic um anarchic sentiments to it because Jesus Christ was kind of anarchist um yeah and then but then the worst thing when they move you to a Russian penal colony it's practically a labor camp it happens happens after you get sentenced. So you're officially sentenced prisoner. And this is when they start treating you really bad. After seven months, I ended up in Mordovia in a labor camp where prison conditions were so terrible. I could hardly bear it. And it almost broke me psychologically in a sense that I didn't want anything anymore. I just lost myself. I felt like I became pure body, pure existence with no thoughts, no dreams. And it's the worst for an artist. What can you do without your dreams, without your imagination? And what helped me there is the protests and and people and community and I wasn't alone even though my prison wardens really wanted me to be alone they would punish people for becoming friends with me but I made a little like tight group of friends with whom we planned my hunger strike and my media attack on Russian prison system, which worked perfectly. And as a result of it, as a result of my hunger strike and my open letter about prison conditions, one of the prison wardens who was responsible for establishing the system of slave labor in my penal colony ended up under criminal investigation himself. And even though he wasn't put in jail, the system rarely puts their own in jail. But he got a suspended sentence and he lost an opportunity to work in the prison system ever again. It was his passion. He loved to torture people. He loved to make fun of people being in, like being completely in his power. And the replica of the prison cell that you see on the second floor here is the replica of that isolation cell where I was placed once I started the hunger strike. What support system or networks helped you get back on your feet and continue your work after your imprisonment? Network. You had any network or support system who helped you after your prison? Well, yes and no. I had to build almost like a new network. Prison time is terrifying because it really throws you out of your normal zone. So two years passed, some people left, some people were not in activism anymore because there were... these two years were not just years of our imprisonment, but also crackdown and all the freedoms. So lots of journalists lost their jobs and people were just displaced so and some people were weirdly afraid and not afraid but they committed it wasn't like before I mean weirdly enough even by putting us in this pedestal, it removed us from a lot of our old, like more, say, genuine, or no, like, I don't know how to say, connections. And some people started to look at us almost like, oh, you're celebrities now. So there were various reasons why I had to build almost like a new network, which we did. We jumped right back into work. of lawyers that help prisoners to get out and with more simple tasks like obtain medication or medical service when needed. And there was MediaZona. MediaZona, it's a group of journalists, one of rare independent media outlets in Russia that became one of the most important ones in Russia today. And we still have reporters back in Russia, but the head of the organization is elsewhere in Europe. So MediaZona became my new family. And then I had to find my new creative family because the old way of doing pussy ride performances was not possible anymore. We were always at the very... The police was watching very attentively. So right after we got out of jail we tried to make a series of actions at Sochi at the Olympic Games. We didn't want it first. We thought, or probably there will be someone else, fresher, not just out of jail, who can make it. But nobody traveled to Sochi to make an action, so we realized it's got to be us. But we were arrested every single day under false pretenses. There was a burglary in your hotel and you're a suspect so we have to take you to the police station for it and question you for 10 hours and they would drag us by our hair and then Cossacks would jump at us and whip us and this pepper spray in our eyes then our eyes get burned we end up in hospital and then getting out of hospital going back right back to the street to continue the action but it quickly became obvious that this is just not sustainable anymore um and i had to invent new ways um new collaborators and started to started to learn how to actually make music but that's the whole different story. Of course, and they were your family. Were you allowed to meet your daughter during the time of your imprisonment? Yeah, my daughter was coming visiting me every three months, it was allowed. It also didn't help that my husband at the time was cheating very much while I was in jail. So that was fun. So I came back to our home and I had someone else's underwear all around the house. It was just like, cool. I totally feel like I'm needed here. Thank you. Recently, you were sentenced to prison in absence by Moscow court for criticizing Russia's war in the Ukraine. You were also put on Russia's most wanted list a few months ago, as I remember. What are the consequences for you in exile? It's not ideal. And relatively speaking, things can get worse for Russian dissidents. At least I'm still alive and still can do art. I'm in freedom. But being on this most wanted Russian list limits your, I mean, places, places where you can go. So here in Austria, I'm safe because at least for now the government of the countries has pretty strong stance and they won't extradite me to russia so let's say if i go to any other country let's say i want to go to turkey that's a question if i can go there or not on the one hand it's member of nato on the one hand, it's a member of NATO. On the other hand, Erdogan is pretty close to Putin. So nobody ever was extradited yet, but I don't want to be the first one. And then you talk about Indonesia or Thailand, any pretty much Asian country, I guess. I mean, that's the thing. So I didn't really know. So I have to guess every single time when I cross the border. If it's not Europe or Australia, Canada, United States, I have to question, am I going to be arrested and extradited back to Russia where I'm waiting to be instantly arrested and put in jail for probably 25 years. Because in addition to the criminal case that I just got a year ago for Putin's ashes, they opened a criminal case for hurting religious feelings. That is up to five years in jail, I think. Then there is another one cooking for my support to Ukraine. And that was a bad one. I helped raise $7 million for Ukraine in the very beginning of the war. And this is treason. And treason is punishable by 20-25 years in jail. Let's talk about your art now. So how do you define democracy and freedom in your artistic work? Well democracy is an ideal. It's something that we should all strive and hope for and work for. I know that democracy is the biggest red, how do you say, red fabric for the bull, red flag for Putin. His biggest enemy is not Ukraine per se. Like, yes, he wants to destroy Ukraine, but his biggest enemy is the idea of Western democracy, and this is what he's up against. And so that's why it's funny for me to see some of the Western democracies thinking that Putin is going to stop with Ukraine if you let him capture Ukraine. No, his enemy is the entire bloc of countries that believe in democracy, in this ideal of democracy. And at first he was trying to erode it with the means of his propaganda machine. He was trying to play in this post-modernist game of multiple truths and he was saying that you know there is no democracy anywhere like democracy is not perfect in the west as well but that's why I'm saying it's an ideal and for it to work we have to believe in it and Putin tries to destroy this belief. So I work in my art a lot with the idea of believing in something with symbolism with having something to you know to something bigger than yourself as an ideal that you can sacrifice for. People ask me why I'm such a crazy person, why would I give up my freedom and potentially life for, you know, lofty ideas of freedom. But I think the idea of, you know, democracy and freedom is not going to work unless there are people who are ready to sacrifice something for it. And so the idea of overcoming your fear and believing in something deeply and sacrificing when needed for that is at the very core of my art. Thank you. Your art began with a focus on Russia, but has evolved into a broader critique of social structures worldwide. How did this expanded engagement come about, and what do you hope to achieve globally? It reminds me a little bit of Iowa Way, for example. We met Iowa Way just a couple of days ago, because they know each other very well. And so it's reminding me in some way. We met just a couple of days ago because we know each other very well. It's reminding me in some way. I see the world as the fight of two forces. One force is the force of democracy and progress and the force of freedom that wants to include more and more people it's an inclusive kind loving force and there is another one that is conservative chauvinistic right-wing very old-fashioned, looking back, always looking for ideals in the past, like all these things like make America great again, all this sort of crap. But it's not just America, it's not just Hungary, it's not just Russia. These forces are spread everywhere. There are right-wing parties who are doing nicely, unfortunately, in European countries. And I see the world as an endless, or at least this part of history as an endless fight of those two forces. And those retro or old-fashioned forces, they really have Vladimir Putin as their, as their, I call myself, prophet. Trump loves Putin, Orban loves Putin, and they take any pro-dictatorship, like pro-territory and right-wing politician, they would love Putin. So to me, expanding my political views and expanding my practice as a political artist beyond Russia comes very naturally because I see these trends and I can really simply detect them. Not simply, but after talking with local people and investigating the situation, detect these trends locally. And what I really love about Ivey is he is kind of uncomfortable for a lot of people because he refuses to just perform what is expected of him. So when he came to Europe he did human flow and he talked about the situation with immigrants in Europe instead of just being a poster child for China, how bad China is, how oppressive. Yes, he doesn't shy away from it. Chinese government is oppressive, but also I want to tackle the local issues. And I think it's very honest and very brave. And if you are curious mind, you will always find something else to care about besides your local issues. That being said, obviously the core of my practice, political and artistic practice, is still Russia and, you know, Putin unfortunately. Thank you for this great answer. What motivates you to continue to fight against injustice? Because there's a lot of motivation going on. A little bit. The motivation. I don't know. You just have your ideals and you don't stop until it's realized in one shape or another. And then I think there is this sense of empathy when you look at injustice and you become upset about it. My partner and husband, partner in crime John Caldwell is here. He is vegan for 20 something years and I became vegan two years ago and you know there's another sort of injustice against animals that a lot of us commit on a daily basis without even thinking about it. And he helped me to be more sensitive and more empathetic towards beings who are not as powerful as we are and we torture them for no fucking reason. So I think just, you know, keeping your mind and heart open and try to adjust your behavior. Thank you. Also thank you, John. How do you see the history of performance art and activism in the Russian context? Do the repeat, yeah. How do you see the history of performance art and activism in the Russian context? Repeat, yeah. How do you see the history of performance art and activism in the Russian context? I'm deeply inspired by Moscow radical actionism from the 90s. And then by romantic conceptualist movements from the 70s and 80s. So what those guys were doing in 70s and 80s, collective actions, I guess the most known person of collective actions is Andrei Monastyrsky. I think I've read once an article of monastyrsky himself he said i started off as like a young man wanting to be a dissident and then uh he got arrested and and then he realized that he just doesn't want to go to jail. So he said, I'm still going to be a dissident, but in a cultural sense. So he shifted to making this collective actions that was a serious, like, long, for years, they were doing this series of performances. And they would go to the outskirts of Moscow or travel in the villages and make this very cryptic actions like you know, throw a shoe in the direction of that tree. And then, and we were all very smart people, very accomplished people, scholars and writers, artists, so everyone would write, or everyone who wanted would write their own article about this like what what does it mean to throw the shoe in that direction and the traces of this actions are just so deep and and beautiful and metaphysical and cryptic umic for various reasons. I mean, one simple reason is that they needed to protect themselves from the government. So they were using this weird and difficult philosophical language because none of the cops would ever understand it. So this is one. And I mean, I get the word other participants. Like, I mean, one of my favorite actions is, I think it was Vadim Zakharov. And he did an action with like a performance piece with like statues of elephants. And it's very simple. It's like that photo captured my mind forever. He's just standing on his floor and there are statues of this elephant that a lot of people had in their Soviet homes, so it's like something like working with everyday objects and turning them into art, and that's it, that's the whole performance. So he's just like, basically like a stand for this very Soviet elephants. And to me, it was so meaningful. As a young girl growing up in Siberia, I thought I really wanted to live my life in its weirdest way. But my parents always told me that I have to especially my mom she said no you have to find a profession you have to follow this this lane and you know exactly where you're gonna be in 30 years like nothing like nothing was more terrifying to me than that I didn't want to know anything about my future I wanted to create it every single second I was an existentialist god god damn, I loved Sartre, like you choose every single moment how you want to be. And performance art really encapsulated this for me. And then this Moscow actionism. Anatoly Osmolovsky, Oleg Kulik, Alexander Brenner. They were doing extremely bold, provocative actions that really captured the essence of time of Russia in the 90s. It was wild, beautiful, chaotic time. Everyone believed that everything is possible because the old order went away and people were reimagining the future, how culture is going to work, how advertisement is going to work. It was not just boring capitalism as you had in the 90s here. Our capitalism, people did not know how to do capitalism so they invented their own ways in a way everyone was an artist and artists were completely wild like I mean you probably most of you heard about Alec Kulik and his action was when he was man dog he was completely naked holding a leash by Alexander Brenner and he was guarding the entrance to the exhibition he was jumping on people jumping on cars and ended up getting arrested or Alexander Brenner who went to the Red Square this Lobnoye Miesto this around like kind of middle thing in the Red Square. And he was jumping up and down with boxer gloves and screaming to the president of Russia back in the day in the 90s. It was Yeltsin. He was screaming, Yeltsin, come fight with me as an honest man. And then he got arrested again. So, I mean, usually performance, like radical performance doesn't have long, doesn't have, it doesn't last for longer than 10 years. People get tired of it or grow out of it. It has, sometimes it's different, but most of the times, just somehow history shows that it took 10 years and then it's gone. They do other things, like Asmalovsky started to do objects and exhibitions in the early 2000s. So we felt like we needed to fill the niche. And we wanted to become new radicals, which we did. Thank you, great answers. Thank you very much. And you're not only into performance art or activism, you're also dealing with paintings and also on NFTs. So what about what is your position on the NFT space and Web3, for example? on the NFT space and WebTree, for example. Hello, Julia. Yeah, this exhibition started because Julia got in touch with John. They're both... Dorks. No. They're CryptoPunks. You know this community, CryptoPunks? So they both belong to this community. They knew each other because of that. It's like a cult of JPEGs. And they're worth an insane amount of money, like easily $200,000, $300,000, millions of dollars. So Julia contacted John and he said, do you want to have a museum exhibit i said yeah of course um so i think it's incredible that this museum has your mind open to the digital art what happened in 2020 with the NFT revolution really captured my mind because I always thought it's unequal, like people who work primarily with digital mediums have really unequal access to support from the sides of art market, galleries, but also institutions. The most part, they're still not recognized as real artists. To be a real artist, you have to create an object. So ever since I got out of jail, I was like, from time to time, I would talk to a gallery and they would ask me, who we know about here, the people, like, everyone knows about here, but where are your objects? And I was like was like well they're not objects I'm making videos and photos and I'm making performance and it's immaterial art but there's got to be a way how to how you can support this um and then there was no way but and then in 2020, I became really interested in the NFT movement for two reasons. One, because I think it proclaimed the value of digital art. And second, because I looked at it as a great tool for raising money for activist purposes. Which we did. This is how we fell in love with John, my husband. We raised money for Ukraine and I think we proved to each other that we are, I guess, courageous enough to make this. Because it does take courage and it does put you on numbers of hit lists for Russian authorities. And then, I mean, well, currently I don't think really, I mean, if any of you are interested in raising money through NFTs for activist purposes, I don't think it's a good time. But long term, it's an interesting technology that is has a lot of support from a very interesting and important institutional players I mean your museum has departments has a curator who is dedicating all her time to NFTs then I was just talking to Hansel Rickobrist Serpentine who is very much interested in NFTs. Then Michelle Kuo from MoMA and many others. So I think they're here to stay and hopefully they're not going to be supporting, they're not going to be repeating the mistake of the old art world of supporting just the most successful money wise players but also supporting artists who them need support the most so that's why we did we created a unicorn now we raised a few million dollars to collect art by female artists and LGBTQ plus artists. Two questions left. What do you hope your art and activism will achieve in the long term? Your specific, your art and activism. I have several dreams. Some of them them Russia specific. Like I really want to turn Kremlin into the center of contemporary art and then I want to turn Lubyanka, the FSB building, into a shelter for victims of domestic violence. It is not just my whim, I actually thought about it a lot, and I think it's really the best pitch for those places. Because Lubyanka has such a crazy history of oppression, you know, every piece of the wall there is, you know, it's in blood of I know it's in blood of multiple generation of political prisoners. And I think building on its place, something that does the opposite, heals, supports people, provides shelter, would heal those walls. Because otherwise you just have to blow the fucking building. You have to blow it up. Or create something very nice and very healing with it so there is that um and then personally i just hope to continue making art and becoming a better artist artist i've just and as I said I started working with objects not that long time ago because I like challenges so I've started I started making music after three years of becoming a famous musician which was like I did not know how to do music but pussy ride became famous as so-called musicians we were not we were performance artists. But then I was like, well, I'll learn how to make music because it's a nice, nice challenge. And I did. So same thing here. I don't want to stagnate. And I always want to learn something new, a new genre. Hopefully, I'll become better and then better with objects. And then maybe I'll move on to opera. Also, Ivor Wade is working on it. And Marina Abramovich. So, last question. What message would you like to pass on to the next generation of artists and activists? generation of artists and activists. There are a lot of people who will tell you not, no, this is not going to work, your dream is stupid, you're naive, I know how the world works, you don't, you're little, you don't matter, you're a fucking woman, your opinion doesn't matter. Well, there are tons of people who tell you that. But I think it's important to have your dreams in front of your nose as a carrot. And just follow it. And don't think about all people who put you down. Because the world world the patriarchy will always try to do that they just they're there for that but having a good supportive community really helps what I found out and then well dream big and make your dreams come true wonderful dream big and make your dreams come true. Wonderful. Thank you Nadia. It was a pleasure talking to you. Really, it was amazing. Thank you very much. And just give me one last word. I would really very much recommend to visit us tomorrow for the opening and her performance. And also we have Peter Schneeberger here from the ORF Kulturmontag and Harald Wilde. So also watch ORF Kulturmontag. Peter will also do another interview with Nadja. And of course, Harald Wilde did, I guess, a very nice documentary, somehow a documentary about the exhibition we did here in Lehn-ZDOK. Thank you very much. Wishing you a very nice day, very nice evening. Thank you for coming. Thank you.