N<\/strong>adya Tolokonnikova, the co-founder of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot<\/a>, was sitting in a replica Russian prison cell in downtown Los Angeles when the police started shutting down the streets around the art museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Police helicopters hovered overhead. Somewhere, through a loudspeaker, an officer delivered a tinny order to disperse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tolokonnikova was only three and a half days into what was supposed to be a \u201cdurational performance\u201d reenacting her two years as a political prisoner in Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Donald Trump had ordered national guard troops into Los Angeles<\/a>, over the objections of California\u2019s governor, and the protests against immigration raids that Trump wanted to target were happening just a block from the gallery where Tolokonnikova was performing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Museum of Contemporary Art<\/a> (Moca) hastily decided to shut its doors. But Tolokonnikova, 35, whose political art has left her as a wanted criminal in Russia, chose to continue her performance inside the empty museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPolice State Exhibit Closed Today Due to the Police State,\u201d she posted on Instagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The situation \u201cfelt like I had entered a wormhole,\u201d Tolokonnikova told the Guardian the next day via email. She wanted to be out on the streets, but she decided to finish her performance while live-streaming audio of the protests outside into her prison cell. It felt important, she wrote, \u201cnot to bend to the whims of Ice or the national guard\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tolokonnikova was in Los Angeles to display a new performance piece called Police State, which includes a replica Russian prison cell like the ones in which she was incarcerated for nearly two years, including in the notorious penal colony IK-14 <\/a>in Mordovia. Tolokonnikova had been just 22 when she and two other members of Pussy Riot were convicted of \u201chooliganism motivated by religious hatred\u201d for staging an anti-Putin \u201cPunk Prayer\u201d protest in a Moscow cathedral in early 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After her release in late 2013, she kept demonstrating, and kept making art. In 2021, the Russian government labeled her a \u201cforeign agent<\/a>\u201d. A recent multimedia performance, Putin\u2019s Ashes,<\/a> which came to Los Angeles in 2023<\/a>, had landed her on Russia\u2019s wanted list, and led to her being arrested in absentia<\/a> for the crime of \u201cinsulting the religious feelings of believers<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Los Angeles was the latest stop in a series of museum exhibitions that had brought the artist to Berlin<\/a> and Linz in Austria for a show called Wanted. Police State, which was being performed at the Geffen Contemporary at Moca, had been designed for an audience, with museum visitors peering at her through observation holes in the walls, or following the surveillance video from her cell on gallery screens. It was her first time doing a \u201cdurational\u201d performance, and she had planned to spend hours each day inside the cell creating music, mixing it with leaked audio from Russian prisons, and sewing protest slogans on military shirts, all the while surrounded by a crowd of supportive people outside the fake cell walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, suddenly, she was alone again. A block away, protesters had gathered outside the federal buildings where detained immigrants, including families with small children, were reportedly being held in basements<\/a>, with little food or water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her replica cell, Tolokonnikova thought about the Los Angeles mothers and fathers who had just been torn away from their families, people who were \u201chard-working breadwinners and caretakers\u201d, not violent gang members. She looked at the art decorating her cell\u2019s walls, drawings sent by current and former political prisoners in Russia and Belarus, \u201cpeople imprisoned for 10, 15, 20 years, simply for being good\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was thinking of dehumanization and scapegoating as a universal mechanism \u2013 applied with heartbreaking ruthlessness both back home and here,\u201d she wrote in the email. \u201cI was thinking how the western idea that history inevitably moves toward progress is a mirage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When her performance hours were done, she walked out into the Los Angeles streets for comfort. It was early Sunday evening, and the protests downtown had been going on most of the afternoon. \u201cPeople were giving out gas masks, water, and protective glasses,\u201d she wrote. What captured her attention was not moments that would be played and replayed on the news, like Waymo automated vehicles set on fire, or protesters streaming on to the 101 highway. It was the way being at a protest feels: \u201cThat spirit of care and solidarity is precious,\u201d she wrote. \u201cPeople were being shot with rubber bullets and burned by tear gas, yet they refused to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Wednesday, the museum announced that the rest of Tolokonnikova\u2019s performance would have to be postponed indefinitely, because of \u201congoing demonstrations and military activity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery single event I did in Russia was shut down by the cops,\u201d she posted on Instagram, \u201cand now it\u2019s starting to feel a lot like Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tolokonnikova, who faces immediate arrest<\/a> if she returns to Russia, is not an optimist. In recent months, she has repeatedly compared<\/a> her art practice to the musicians who kept playing on the Titanic as the ship went down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think we live in a world that doesn\u2019t really belong to us any more,\u201d she told me in an interview the week before her Los Angeles performance began. \u201cIf 15 years ago, I wanted to radically change the world, now I just want to comfort people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI mean, I still wouldn\u2019t mind changing the world,\u201d she added. But at the moment, the change she\u2019s seeing \u201cgoes in the opposite direction\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, Tolokonnikova, 35, does not take her ability to keep making big art installations for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d she told me in our Los Angeles interview, as she and her collaborators were working on the final touches to her replica prison cell. \u201cI don\u2019t know if victory is the right word, but it\u2019s rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to be ready to offend ourselves and other people. Otherwise, Maga people are just going to keep winning<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Nadya Tolokonnikova<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I walked inside the replica cell, it was bigger and far more detailed than I expected, with battered, blue-painted plaster walls etched with graffiti, a desk for Tolokonnikov\u2019s music equipment, and a toilet in the corner that she planned to use during her performance shifts, which would last either six or eight hours. The floor of the cell was dirty, and the observation holes fit into the walls had heavy metal covers that could slide open or closed. There were surveillance cameras all over the cell, even one pointed at the toilet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Russian prisons where she was incarcerated had \u201ccameras right above the toilet bowl, which makes no sense for us people who live outside of jails\u201d, she said. \u201cBut once you\u2019re in, you kind of just know, well, that\u2019s what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We talked with the noise of construction around us, and the sharp smell of iron in the air, a sign of the metalwork in progress nearby. Partway through our conversation, the metalworker approached, wheeling the massive cell door, to ask Tolokonnikova about the finish she wanted on the metal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each of these details mattered to Tolokonnikova. One of her inspirations for the durational prison performance is her friend Marina Abramovi\u0107, known as \u201cthe grandmother of performance art<\/a>\u201d. Another is the late conceptual artist Ilya Kabakov<\/a>, who had meticulously replicated<\/a> an old, deteriorating Soviet public bathroom<\/a> and displayed it in a European gallery so western audiences could understand the context of his art. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the works that changed my life for ever,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For authenticity, the table in her cell was covered with a garish plastic tablecloth printed with lemons, a \u201cvery post-Soviet thing\u201d that people incarcerated in Russia use \u201cto recreate this idea of comfort of coziness, in jail\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To more directly connect her performance to other political prisoners still incarcerated in Russia, Tolokonnikova had collected drawings they had made to display in the cell. This was a laborious process, she explained, working with the prisoners\u2019 family members and lawyers, and some of the art had not yet arrived. But she was hopeful that displaying Russian prisoners\u2019 work in a prestigious American museum might help their cases, even help them get on a prisoner exchange list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tolokonnikova and another jailed member of Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, staged hunger strikes<\/a> and drew international attention<\/a> to the conditions in their different prisons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When she was incarcerated in prison colony No 14 in the Russian region of Mordovia, Tolokonnikova was forced to work 16-hour days, seven days a week, sewing uniforms for police officers. The sewing machine she had used in prison had constantly broken down, something she believes was not a coincidence: the prison staff wanted to make her life \u201ccompletely impossible\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A decade later, in her reenactment of prison life, Tolokonnikova was planning to again sew military-style uniforms on a battered old sewing machine, but this time she would be embellishing them with \u201csome simple words that mean something to me like exiled or voided, cancelled, expelled, alien \u2013 how I feel these days’\u201d. She would trim some of the uniforms with lace, she added, \u201cbecause I always like to add some cuteness\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lives of Russian dissidents are not easy, and becoming a prominent Putin critic, as Tolokonnikova has done, is dangerous, even after dissidents have left Russia. One of the art works in Tolokonnikova\u2019s Los Angeles exhibit is a candy machine labeled with the different poisons that have been used to murder enemies of the Russian state: Polonium 210 Isotope, Thallium, Sarin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On certain subjects, Tolokonnikovia can be laconic, even dismissive. Asked about how she was preparing to protect her mental health while reenacting her imprisonment in Los Angeles, she said she had not really made any plans. \u201cSelf-care is not my strong suit. I\u2019m just like: I don\u2019t have time for this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it came to performance, she said, Ambramovi\u0107 had told her several years ago that \u201conce you commit to an idea, it basically negates all the fear\u201d and that \u201cif you believe that the particular artistic idea that you chose is good enough, then you just kind of don\u2019t care about physical safety, or emotional safety\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sure it\u2019s gonna be triggering as fuck at some points for me to sit there,\u201d she added. \u201cBut do I care? No. Because I think the work has to be done, and I\u2019ll deal with it later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tolokonnika\u2019s punk aesthetic is not something she adopts for performances. She told me cheerfully about almost getting blown up by pyrotechnics at a recent unauthorized concert, and praised the work of LA\u2019s Dead City Punx<\/a>, a hardcore punk band and one of her planned collaborators in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne thing that I just don\u2019t vibe with in modern American society \u2013 there\u2019s an entire thing about safety. And I\u2019ve lived my life in a way that safety was the last thing that I would care about,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a thing I think about a lot lately. We need to be less safe, be ready to offend ourselves and other people. Otherwise, Maga people are just going to keep winning, because they\u2019re not afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tolokonnikova told me she had hoped that people would come to her Moca exhibit with their children. \u201cI\u2019ve always been obsessed with building a version of Disneyland, but much more radical and grim,\u201d she said. She had worked with Banksy on Dismaland, the artist\u2019s 2015 dark Disney satire, but she\u2019s still thinking about the possibilities of a more revolutionary theme park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a giant waste of time and money the way that Disneyland looks now. It just doesn\u2019t accomplish anything,\u201d she said. Imagine, she suggested, if the animatronic characters of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride were instead a way for kids \u201cto learn the history of the feminist movement\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo instead of pirates doing this,\u201d she said, jerking her arms, \u201cit could be like, you\u2019re a suffragette being arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cObviously, I don\u2019t have a budget to build Disneyland,\u201d she added. \u201cBut it was a dream of mine for ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/8fd37271c26b6bb4107f98aae0b74b93a3dd5d00\/0_0_6000_4000\/master\/6000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none\")
<\/a>![\"Person](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/93b387a17f8e8e32fdcd945e70cc1e3accfd12be\/0_0_5000_3335\/master\/5000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none\")
<\/a>\u2018Now I just want to comfort people\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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![\"text](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/9e2159391dd2b0791d9ac3cef52bf120f2703741\/0_0_3335_5000\/master\/3335.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none\")
<\/a>Danger for Russian dissidents<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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