We are seeing more and more women symbolically using their vulva and vagina for both artistic and political purposes. In Montreal, in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, in 2016, we saw graffiti flourishing Vagina party, street art feminist. In São Paulo, Brazil, in 2021, Juliana Notari created Diva, an immense sculpture in the shape of a female invaginating in a grassy meadow, a work serving to break the silence around gender issues in this country. On the music side, in France, Les Vulves assassines sing I am satisfied, I like cock but not yours And The beautiful language of Molière (title which takes on a new meaning in their mouth). In Quebec, the group NOBRO has just released its album Set Your Pussy Free… And let’s not forget the Femen who proclaim: “My vagina is not listed on the stock market and my body is neither a start-up nor a business! »
Pussy Riot on the attack
Formed in 2011, the Russian feminist punk artistic collective and music group Pussy Riot first became known to the world on February 21, 2012, during a performance in the Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. For only 40 seconds, they then sang a new kind of prayer to the Virgin Mary so that she would rid Russia of Vladimir Putin. Their wish has unfortunately not yet been granted. One would doubt the existence of God… For this “blasphemous” spectacle, three of them – Ekaterina Samoutsevitch, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina – were entitled to hellish incarceration. The latter two, sentenced to two years in prison in Krasnoyarsk, in eastern Siberia, were released by Putin after 21 months of detention. It was just before the Sochi Olympic Games in order to improve Russia’s image. These women, who do not lack courage, have released numerous music videos, including Straight Outta Vagina in 2016, where Nadejda Tolokonnikova sings that their “vagina is hard and dangerous” while urging women to “wear their vagina with honor”.
For the artist Ragnar Kjartansson, one of the co-curators of the exhibition at the MAC, Pussy Riot are “the best political artists of this 21e century “. For him, “they don’t do preaching work, they don’t want to teach us how to think or how to become better people. There is a creative energy in their work worthy of the actions of Fluxus. I also love how Pussy Riot unwillingly forces the Russian state to become their dance partner. »
Maria Alekhina
It was Maria Alekhina who, with truly captivating energy, presented her history of the various activities of this collective in Russia at a press conference at the MAC. Despite the magnificent cacophony of the rooms where the various videos presented resonated, Alekhina discussed their projects with contagious tenacity.
But how does she react to the fact that, for years, Western governments and even geopolitical experts have seriously explained to us that Putin is not that dangerous? “I have seen this extremely hypocritical attitude develop for years,” Alekhina replied. We told Western countries how we were beaten during our actions in Sochi and Nizhny Novgorod [en 2014]. However, there was no reaction. We told the European Parliament how a new Iron Curtain was being established, that more and more people were finding themselves imprisoned in Russia, and that Crimea was just one stage in an occupation that would cause more deaths in Ukraine… But economic interests and money were more important. Now my goal is to show Russia’s current crimes. And I know for sure how not all oligarchs were sanctioned, how not all Putin’s men were expelled from Western countries and how Russian money was not completely frozen either. » So, is there a need for a stronger response from the West? ” Of course ! Ukrainians need help. They are certainly courageous, but they are less strong. » And what do they care about the risks of an expansion of the war to other countries? “People have short memories. Remember 2014 and the annexation of Crimea. The West did not react, except for some weak sanctions. The aim of this regime is to reconstitute, by force, the empire of the Soviet Union. And it won’t stop with Ukraine. »
Note that the 1er November will take place the multimedia activist experience Pussy Riot: Riot Days at the Rialto Theater.