What is to be done?

After years of relative resignation, Russia has turned in the last months into a place of manifold resistance: tens of thousands of Russians marched through Moscow amid a stream of banners demanding President Vladimir Putin step down and challenged new laws designed to curb protest against his strongly centralised rule. From the very beginning artists have been participating in the protests, using very different strategies and projects to create symbols of resistance, to infiltrate the Russian order, to fight the system and to show, that they do not agree with the aggressive autocracy of Vladimir Putin, who fights with all hardness against consistently critical voices and members of the opposition.

Actions of the Voina Group (War) or punk-song-performances by Pussy Riot have been elevated to a cult status and – via the internet – internationally received. But the range of political strategies in art is much broader: Art collective Chto Delat (What is to be done) is gathering coverage of the protests on their Web site, the collective teatr.doc uses documentary material in their performances to bring up facts the official media does not mention, Make transforms public space with signs and symbols and the work of visual artists like Alexandra Galkina criticises the commercial structure of society and arts markets.

Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Dmitry Vilensky
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Nikolay Oleynikov
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Chto Delat
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Alexandra Galkina
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Anna Jermolaewa
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Make
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Elena Gremina
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Katya Bondarenko
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Voina
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Judith Schwentner