Pussy Riot, the badass feminist punk collective, has started a Kickstarter to help with their newest project. According to the site, the project is “a breakthrough immersive theatre production to remind us what is worth fighting for.” Pussy Riot has teamed up with Les Enfants Terribles to make an immersive experience that will allow participants to feel what it’s like to be in a Russian Prison. It’s meant to remind the participants of their freedoms but putting them in replicas of the Russian cells that Pussy Riot member Nadya was kept in.
Pussy Riot members were arrested when they performed material criticizing Putin at a Russian cathedral in 2012. Two of them, Nadya Tolokno and and Maria Alyokhina, were sentenced to two years in prison before being released two months early because they were mothers, which qualified them for the new amnesty laws. As soon as Nadya was released, she criticized the law and claimed it was only a publicity stunt, which showed that her time in prison hadn’t broken her spirit. Even in prison, she went on a hunger strike to protest the conditions.
The Kickstarter has a goal of $78,075 to help fund the 6-week run that the project will have in London, and it looks like it’ll only run if it’s fully funded by August 18th. The Kickstarter explains, “We’re going to recreate Russian courtrooms, a real Russian labour colony, solitary confinement cells, priests who shout about banning abortions and many more absurd, but real-life things that exist in Russia today.” Nadya explains that from her experiences with prison she has learned that the freedom of speech is a luxury. She wants to show people what her prison time was really like and the injustices that the Russian people face. She wants the project to be funded by regular people and to educate regular people.
Photo Credit: Pussy Riot Kickstarter
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