REVOLUTION: Pussy Riot Commemoration Festival @ Kraak

I had, admittedly, almost completely forgotten about Pussy Riot – I remember being captivated by their story first appearing in the news, probably just over a year ago - it was a combination of the courage and persistence of the three women and the shock, as well, that we live in a modern world and this is still happening that inspired a lot of people, I think. If I'm honest, I stopped thinking about Pussy Riot as it disappeared from the papers and the news, and this is something I'm sure I'm not alone in.

Then, I was reminded last month at an Amanda Palmer show of all places, when Olivia, from online magazine Shatter Japan, spoke about a fundraising event that they are holding, to help and raise awareness for Pussy Riot.

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I was curious, both about the Pussy Riot situation itself and why the British press has left such a gaping hole in terms of addressing it, so went and met Olivia in Manchester last week to talk about it.

The seventeenth of August will mark one year since Masha, Nadia and Katya were sentenced to two years prosecution for performing a “Punk Prayer”, to oppose Vladimir Putin’s policies, in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Olivia and her team at Shatter Japan are holding a two day commemoration festival in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, in two weeks' time.

Olivia explains to me that within this first year of Pussy Riot’s prison sentence, they’ve been constantly changing between prisons, and their legal team shifted completely. “Originally they were all kept in Moscow together, then it was decided they’d be sent to penal colonies. Masha was separated from Nadia, at the moment Masha’s being relocated again. There’s a real grey area in terms of where they are and what’s going on with them – I can’t tell you for sure, I’m not sure even if their lawyers can tell you. The rumours were even the lawyers didn’t have access to the reasons why Masha was being located. They are not together. It’s been implied that the reason they were separated was obviously so that they can’t communicate, and to break them down mentally and emotionally.”

For the team working on these events, the lack of communication and sense of disconnection has been a huge issue – a combination of there being cloudiness surrounding any political situation in Russia, as well as an added difficulty caused by the lack of participation from British mainstream media.

However, they got the chance to meet two members of Pussy Riot at Yoko Ono’s Meltdown in London, recently.  “That’s the first point I think that our team, having done all of this work, had a real sense of connection with them. There are so many activists and arts people down in London and across the country that have been working on other aspects of the Pussy Riot cause, but this was the first time we had direct connection with the women themselves, so that was good for us in terms of being able to say that this is a real issue, they’re really committed to releasing their colleagues.”

She’s very clear about the point that Pussy Riot have always thought of themselves as “media activists”, and that awareness is the main objective for them. “They pick a space that they want to perform in; there may be a reason for why that particular location, and then they perform. They’re not a traditional band in the sense that they have four key players, it’s this organic group of people who care about things, trying to make a point through their art.”

Olivia explains how the way the press have been only covering larger parts of the Pussy Riot story has left a considerable amount of gaps in most people's knowledge – recently, it has come seemingly out of nowhere that Masha is on hunger strike. “It’s just the sensationalist side of it that the mainstream press will leap on – you haven’t had any lead-up to that. The information coming from the prisons where Masha and Nadia are is really limited, it’s this really longwinded chain of information that finally gets back to mainstream British media. It’s partly to do with circumstance that that’s going on, but I partly think it’s because nobody’s really tracking what’s going on in the mainstream media, therefore you end up with a total gap of information – the most visible press not doing their job properly.”

She gives off a suspicion of editors making an active decision to ignore the cause – “I would even go as far as to say that the mainstream media are consciously ignoring it. Actively not reporting on it, actively not putting resources into that area. "

Another cause of the lack of severity in the way the British media are addressing the Pussy Riot story is how this situation is something those of us that are privileged, and free, literally cannot imagine – it’s almost like fiction, and the only way I could think of to describe it is “hilariously awful.” Olivia says that the comical portrayal of Putin is definitely an issue. “They haven’t realised that it’s a very serious situation, and when they announced the so-called Anti-Gay Legislations there were protests in the streets, these young kids – some maybe LGBT and some who weren’t, maybe colleagues of theirs, being harassed in the streets for protesting; blood coming off their heads, people being beaten up, people being hounded down alleyways, something that you now think don’t really happens. You don’t expect it to be happening within Europe or in the sphere of your world, but it’s happening, and it’s actually getting worse.”

But she expresses a hope in the role that smaller communities and especially the Internet play in raising awareness about Pussy Riot, though it doesn’t have the same power as a broadcast on BBC News or a headline from The Telegraph. “It’s where the bloggers come in, the activists, arts communities; social media is where the continuous flow of information is coming from. When something will come out, if you happen to be online at the time, then you might see that feed, but it won’t last for very long.”

“Revolution”, a two day festival taking place in Manchester’s Northern Quarter on Sunday 18^th and Monday 19^th of August, will be collecting funds for The Voice Project, one of the only legitimate organisations in terms of helping Pussy Riot and distributing funds directly to them (their website is really great and contains a lot of information about where the funds are going as well as merch/videos/messages from the girls.) Olivia explains the communication situation makes distributing funds to Pussy Riot a great struggle. “Originally when we did these events Pussy Riot had a different legal team, and we were in direct touch with that legal team and so we actually sent the funds directly to the lawyers. At some point at the end of last year the legal team was switched, so we’re no longer in direct touch.”

 “A lot of people have been put away in Russia, in other countries, and here as well, where you can’t hear their voices anymore. I don’t think anybody is capable of resolving this Pussy Riot issue. It’s a global difficult issue involving politics and religion and all sorts of things, but I think the idea is you just relate it to yourself – it’s up to the individual at the end to think about whether they want to know more.”

As well as donating and coming along to the event, the best thing that anyone can do is raise awareness - it's clear that social media, tweets, blogs, and real physical interactions like putting up posters, telling a friend, telling children - is one of the best ways to help Pussy Riot.

 “The easiest way to raise awareness to be honest is actually within our communities – student communities, writers, musicians, the arts community, politicians maybe. These are the areas that the people can raise awareness through without depending on the mass media. I do think that what we’re doing is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re giving people options to think about whether they care for something or not, and that’s important.” Hope, she says, is in young people, and in the Internet. "We really need to encourage young people to really be curious about what's going on in the outside world. Don't block information from them about this: keep it open, and create discussion. If you're in a band, talk about it."

But her most important message - and the message of Pussy Riot themselves - is that Revolution is bigger than them - it's about art, human rights, and most of all about freedom. This "Revolution" is about actively pushing ideas and discussion, not waiting for things to evolve.

 "We wanted to start the ball rolling and a little bit of discussion going, about how people want their arts communities to be and how artists want them, ideally. How you can hold events for free, in your community - you don't need to involve corporations and unethical people. There's a way of building that kind of arts industry. It's also about talking about LGBT issues - those issues are still very unresolved, even here. Obviously parts of Africa or Russia at the moment are really seriously in need of sorting out in that area, seriously needing help. And also we musn't forget that here there are lots of desparities in society - the pay gap between men and women is disgraceful. We want to take the template for what Pussy Riot are doing and put that into our own work. We'll do this event, and we'll bring as many people together as we can."

The event features local bands, as well as some travelling from London, Liverpool and Leeds, and the debut UK solo performance from Princess Century (drummer from the Torontonian electro-band Austra), as well as video messages from supporting artists all around the globe - this is very much not just for Manchester's arts community, but an international and hopefully world-changing thing.

You can buy tickets here, and if you're not Manchester-based, check out The Voice Project and Shatter Japan for much more information about Pussy Riot.