|
28 Dec 2011, 6:20
interview With organisers saying that almost 100, 000 people protested in Russia’s biggest anti-governmental rally on 10 December - accusing the kremlin of ‘fraud’ in 4 December parliamentary elections - we hear from the Moscow-based self-styled ‘street art gang’ in part two of an exclusive interview, where they describe their role in this Russia.
What do you think about the reactions in the media to your actions? What’s the biggest cliché you’ve heard about the group? Koza (the group’s coordinator Natalia Sokol): There’s a great number of myths about Voina circulating in the media. Any given publication is 30% gossip and hearsay, even though we are always available and open to communication with journalists. The thing is, there is no honest, independent journalism in Russia. It has been eradicated. On the other hand, the misinformation in the media sometimes works in our favour. It helps to have a cloud of lies surrounding you when the state is attempting criminal persecution against you. Leo (the group’s president, Leonid Nikolaev): The biggest cliche is that we are simply spoiled ‘golden youth’, rich party kids whose powerful parents keep us out of trouble. In truth, we a leading a deeply underground existence, living the honest lives of Russian paupers. Voina’s action | ‘Help a child, help your country!’ What do you think or Russian politics today? And of Russian culture? Vor (the group’s ideologist Oleg Vorotnikov): There is no politics in Russia today. The so-called parliamentary opposition as a whole is entirely tame and controlled. The communists have long turned into prostitutes who whore themselves out to the regime. The non-parliamentary street opposition has been wiped from the streets, crushed, its activists thrown behind bars or physically exterminated by riot police and by the infamous police department ‘center E’, the anti-extremism department, which has assumed the role of secret police tasked with suppressing political dissent. The list of activists and journalists in Russia who have been killed, maimed or imprisoned is ever growing. Then there are the so-called liberals, a bourgeois crowd, self-proclaimed as part of the opposition. All they do is hang out and organise festivals in their own honour, all sanctioned by the president’s administration. They enjoy themselves at country resorts where they hold their conferences, and they call it protest activity. They’re nothing more than trendy kids, clutching their iPhones as they discuss the revolution on twitter. They aren’t interesting to anyone but themselves yet for the regime they are very convenient. The underground protest movement is now on the rise. It is made up of activists who no longer see any promise in peaceful protest methods. They are extremely secretive and have serious ambitions. They are forming underground squads and groups that would oppose the regime by force. Peaceful protest has exhausted itself. Leo: In the years of Putin’s rule (2000 - 2008 - ed), the regime has discredited peaceful protests through violent crackdowns on harmless rallies, and through beatings and long prison sentences for peaceful activists. On the other hand, the adherents of peaceful protest have been discrediting themselves for a long time. They have failed to find a way to make their protest effective. There is only one way for true opposition in today’s Russia: WAR, or VOINA. Do you also see positive trends in Russia today? Vor: Yes. The things germinating in the underground right now are unknown activists who are the only people we work with. All of our thoughts and deeds belong to Russia. However, I’m not at all sure that Russia has a future. Only in the best case scenario would it be able to continue its existence as a country without the need for human sacrifice. That is the most optimistic projection. What artists do you admire? Leo: There’s no sense talking about artists. Our art tastes are irrelevant. Art did affect us when we were students, it helped shape us but it isn’t central to our lives anymore. Koza: We don’t care about art anymore. We’re politicians, fighters. Where do you see yourselves in ten years time? Vor: I’m not sure that I will live that long. The path of a Russian activist is tragic. Once you’re engaged in actions, you don’t belong to this world anymore. You belong to actionism. Leo: I am confident that the regime will choke on us. We’re inedible. We’re poisonous fruit. Koza: In October the criminal investigation against Voina was closed. Suddenly the public prosecutor’s office decides to reopen it. There’s an international arrest warrant out against Vor. I’m wanted by the police country-wide (Voina’s Koza has just been declared an internationally wanted person. She’s being charged with insulting a police officer and violence against a police officer). On 18 October, Kasper and I were abducted from the street by Center E operatives The system has been working towards taking away our son since November 2010. We’re seeing more and more charges being brought against Voina members. Our activists in St. Petersburg are being detained on a regular basis, their homes invaded by cops who destroy their personal possessions in faux searches. Just a few days ago, two plain-clothes cops (most likely Center E agents) broke into Leo’s home in Moscow. Leo was clear of any criminal charges at the time. The majority of our members have already abandoned their homes and resorted to an underground existence. Vor: Ten years does not mean anything to us. We belong to history. Source: http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/article/39526/russia-voina-street-art-interview-activism-beliefs.html 28 Dec 2011, 6:02
interview The Moscow-based self-styled ‘street art gang’ formed in 2005. Its four main members consist of president Leonid Nikolaev - who was arrested at an ‘election fraud protest rally’ on 5 December - ideologist Oleg Vorotnikov, coordinator Natalia Sokol and her son and Voina’s youngest activist, two-year-old Kasper Can’t-Take-Our-Eyes-Off-Him Sokol. Part one of an exclusive interview marks their brief history.
Vor (aka Oleg Vorotnikov): I graduated in philosophy from Moscow state university (MSU). Koza has a PhD in physics and she is affiliated with the sub-department of molecular physics at MSU. Leo is the only one without a college degree. He’s just naturally gifted. I envy him a little bit. Koza and I had been living off the grid in Moscow for ten years and had renounced the use of money for seven of those. We declared that food is a right, not a privilege, and so refused to spend money on it. In fact we never paid for anything at all. We were interested in social practices in the urban space, the ‘how’ of living in one of the world’s most expensive cities while refusing everything that is being forced on us as necessary. Gradually, we renounced everything ‘human’: a home, wealth, jobs, careers. In Moscow, all of those niceties depended in one way or another on loyalty to the current regime, which can only be characterised as cannibalistic. We loathed the regime. We lived in attics and we spent nights in hallways and classrooms of the university. In summer we slept on the streets. We call it the ‘no-whoring way’. Koza (Natalia Sokol aka Kozlenok): This way of life eventually produced our first exhibition of street practices, which took place in the cult art centre DOM in Moscow. The exhibition’s opening in May 2006 marks the starting point of Voina’s public existence as a street art gang. Our adventurous, criminal life received an aesthetic formulation. I named the group after my man. ‘Vor’ sounds like ‘war’, and ‘war’ in Russian is ‘Voina‘. Vor: Our whole life is also an endless war, a war against philistinism. Leo the fucknut (aka Leonid Nikolaev): Our main enemies are the corrupt police and the Russian regime, as the epitome of aggressive philistinism. In the Russian criminal culture, there’s a word for an aggressive philistine: zhlob. It’s the zhlobs who are in power in today’s Russia. They are cops in priest’s cassocks. They have hijacked the country just to be able to stuff their pockets with dirty money. Essentially it’s a triumph of police state mentality and right-wing reactionism under the guise of faux patriotism. A zhlob’s kingdom. So we are against zhlobs. Voina is made up of over 200 activists. Is there also a core to the group? Vor: The backbone of the group, its ideological core is just a handful of people. Right now there are 13 of them. The devil’s dozen. I call them the real leaders of Voina. Kasper is our youngest activist. He was born on 19 April 2009 and has participated in every single one of our actions since then. His first action was Voina’s punk concert in the Tagansky court in Moscow on 29 May 2009. This took place during the trial of art curators Andrei Yerofeev and Yuri Samodurov who were being prosecuted for organising the Forbidden Art exhibition at the Sakharov museum. We smuggled in electric guitars, a microphone and an amplifier into the courtroom. Then we interrupted the judge with a live performance of the song All Cops Are Bastards. Koza screamed into the microphone while holding the one-month-old Kasper in her arms. Kaspar’s first action: | improvised concert in the courtroom Leo: Kasper is Russia’s youngest political prisoner. He has been arrested three times by the Russian police in connection with our activity. On 31 March 2011 the police arrested Kasper in the street on Nevsky Avenue in the heart of St. Petersburg. They yanked him from his parents’ arms by force and sent him to a hospital as an unidentified child. Have you ever lived outside Russia? Leo: We are Russian people. I have never travelled abroad and I’m not planning to. There is war to destruction underway in today’s Russia. The regime is wiping out the Russian people. A significant number of people, especially well-educated folk, have already left the country after trying unsuccessfully to succeed here. The life plans of dozens of millions of people who stayed in Russia have failed to materialise. The regime is to blame for this. That’s why I can’t leave the country. For me, the front line lies here. Source: http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/article/39505/voina-russia-art-collective-interview-biography.html 24 Dec 2011, 21:14
DER SPIEGEL №51/2011 Members of the Russian art collective Voina are supposed to serve as associate curators for the 2012 Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, which begins this spring in Germany. Voina’s work is drawing attention around the world, but international arrest warrants have been issued for two of the its leaders.
The message arrives at the last minute via email, and the tone is commanding. Meeting place: McDonald’s. The conditions: No mobile phones or recording devices. The meeting time: now. 22 Dec 2011, 20:53
Philip Kostenko in his 10th day of hunger strike St. Petersburg activist Philip Kostenko, who has been on a hunger strike since December 6th to protest his 15-day jail sentence, was sentenced today to 15 more days in jail. Philip was initially arrested on December 6th for participating in a peaceful rally against electoral fraud. His first jail term expired yesterday, December 21st. However, instead of being released, he was taken straight to a police station, where he was detained on new charges. The court hearing on those charges was scheduled for today. 06 Dec 2011, 18:24
Leonid Nikolaev escaped from the police in the morning of December 5th. Leonid’s account of the events follows: As I approached Gostiny Dvor, I was concerned about the possibility of being intercepted by police. Nevertheless, I reached the square without a problem. I was late by 10 minutes, and the most prominent activists have already been arrested. Whistling could be heard all over the square. I walked up to Maxim Gromov and we chatted for a bit. The press soon surrounded us so we gave a few interviews. 05 Dec 2011, 0:38
Leonid Nikolaev was detained by police today during a protest rally against election fraud in St. Petersburg. The arrest took place around 8 PM. Leonid’s current whereabouts are unknown. 29 Nov 2011, 20:10
Experts in the “Palace Revolution” case have testified in favor of Voina once again. The experts’ conclusion was presented to Leonid Nikolaev during his meeting with Vadim Rud’, the investigator in charge of the case, on November 21st. The testimony was given by Valery Zarubin and Natalia Nemirova, sociologists at Herzen University in St. Petersburg, per a request from the Investigations Committee. The question posed to the experts was formulated as follows: “Did the actions committed by Vorotnikov and Nikolaev contain a motive of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity?” The experts concluded that neither of the five motives was present. 16 Nov 2011, 16:11
Index on Censorship magazine (The Art Issue, Vol 40, NO. 3 2011): 05 Nov 2011, 22:27
2 November 2011 – The decision to drop the criminal charges against Leonid Nikolaev and Oleg Vorotnikov in relation to the Palace Revolution action has been overturned, according to Voina attorney Dmitri Dinze. 18 Oct 2011, 21:25
Leonid Nikolaev:
|
