The apotheosis of this misunderstanding was the public announcement by Amensty International of Masha's and Nadia's speech at a concert in Barclays Center in New York, as the first legal performance of p*ssy Riot.
Moreover, instead of the names of Nadia and Masha, the poster of the event showed a man in a balaclava with electric guitar, under the name of p*ssy Riot, while the organizers called for people to buy expensive tickets.
All this is an extreme contradiction to the very principles of p*ssy Riot collective.
We are all-female separatist collective -- no man can represent us either on a poster or in reality.
We belong to leftist anti-capitalist ideology -- we charge no fees for viewing our art-work, all our videos are distributed freely on the web, the spectators to our performances are always spontaneous passers by, and we never sell tickets to our "shows."
Our performances are always "illegal," staged only in unpredictable locations and public places not designed for traditional entertainment. The distribution of our clips is always through free and unrestricted media channels.
We are anonymous, because we act against any personality cult, against hierarchies implied by appearance, age and other visible social attributes. We cover our heads, because we oppose the very idea of using female face as a trademark for promoting any sort of goods or services.
The mixing of the rebel feminist punk image with the image of institutionalized defenders of prisoners' rights, is harmful for us as a collective, as well as it is harmful for the new role that Nadia and Masha have taken on.
Hear them finally!
Since it happened that Nadia and Masha chose not to be with us, please, respect their choice. Remember, we are no longer Nadia and Masha. They are no longer p*ssy Riot.
The campaign "Free p*ssy Riot" is over. We, as art collective, have an ethical right to preserve our art practice, our name and our visual identity, distinct from other organizations.
Anonymous members of p*ssy Riot:
Garadja, Fara, Shaiba, Cat, Seraphima and Schumacher
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