Dissident “Street Art” Resisting Neo-Soviet Discourse: the “Voina” and “Pussy Riot” Groups

The link between Moscow art-group “Voina” and the movement of Moscow Conceptualism was clear when, in 2007, it planned a performance with the artist Dmitrii Prigov, called “Voina/War does only unskilled jobs”. Prigov died before he could take part in the performance but the group “Voina” has since carried out an ever more spectacular series of projects, bordering on pornography, as in the notorious performance Fuck for the Heir Puppy Bear!, staged in February 2008, when five couples had public sex in Moscow’s Timiryazev State Museum of Biology. This and other actions were filmed and posted on YouTube and other social networks, immediately going viral. The same M.O. was adopted in the actions of the group “Pussy Riot”, and in Ukraine by “Femen”. While more traditional media such as TV and radio are government monopolies, access to internet and social media is still free and provides a powerful means for these dissident groups to publicize their performances against the restoration of neo-Soviet ideology and to assert their non-conformist identity.