Pussy Riot and FEMEN Storm the Russian Venice Biennale Pavilion

Pussy Riot and FEMEN Storm the Russian Venice Biennale Pavilion

PHOTOS FROM ACTION “Storm of Venice”  courtesy Pussy Riot    6 May 2026 Venice Italy Pussy Riot and FEMEN occupied the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Over 50 Pussy Riot members stormed the Russian Pavillion at Venice Biennale. Police were forced to close the doors of the pavillion, as a loud protest performance happened outside. After performing the DISOBEY song (lyrics below), FEMEN stepped forward with blue and yellow smoke, Ukrainian flags, and chants.  It's the first time Pussy Riot and FEMEN made a joint action. Private security and Italian Police tackled members of Pussy Riot who managed to get inside and open the door that was being blocked by Police. Pussy Riot members wore pink ski masks and had pink smoke, they raised their fists, played guitars and moshed as protest. Pussy Riot's creator Nadya Tolokonnikova says: "Russia's best citizens are either imprisoned for anti-regime and pro-Ukraine actions or killed in jail, while Europe opens its doors to Putin's officials and propagandists. If art is meant to represent a country at the Venice Biennale — something like the Olympics of the art world — then artists imprisoned for their anti-war, pro-Ukraine stance are the real face of modern Russia.  While Pietrangelo Buttafuoco greets his Russian guests with champagne, drones and ballistic missiles fall in Ukraine, thousands of POWs and political prisoners sit in cold jail cells. Their lives are not abstraction, their lives are worth considering - they will not be forgotten and erased as the Kremlin’s stooges hope to achieve. Pussy Riot offers the following proposal — If art should truly outshine censorship, we offer a plan for imprisoned artists (current and former) (link) to represent Russia at the Venice Biennale in 2028. We offer our curatorial services. All we need is Russia's pavilion to be handed from the illegal terrorists that currently wage the largest war in Europe since World War 2, to those who have spent years in the GULAGs of this oppressive regime, and who explicitly support Ukraine’s sovereignty.  We call on Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, Luca Zaia, Luigi Brugnaro to meet with us and discuss the best way to move forward. We work with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on this initiative (Written Declaration & Motion)." FEMEN's Inna Shevchenko: We say it clearly: RUSSIA KILLS — BIENNALE EXHIBITS. BLOOD IS RUSSIA’S ART Every Russian artwork shown this year stands on an invisible pedestal: Ukrainian blood. You won’t find it in the catalogue. But it is the only material that truly holds this pavilion together. Russian terrorist state uses culture to disguise itself.Blood is Russia’s only medium. Everything else is decoration. And the Biennale exhibits it. Because you can open this pavilion with champagne, while Ukraine opens its graves with shovels. Between these two gestures, you must decide where you stand. And this year, the Biennale has decided. We demand that reality enters this space — now. If you exhibit Russia, then exhibit its crimes. Show the bombed Ukrainian cities. Show the graves. Show the bodies — civilians, mutilated, without limbs, forever changed. Otherwise, this is not art. This is propaganda. And you are part of it. Background: Russia’s participation is illegal - because of the sanctions imposed by Europe on Russia. The President of the Biennale helped facilitate a sophisticated FSB scheme —led by Anastasiya Karneeva, the daughter of an FSB general—to find a loophole that allowed Russia to participate this year. The Russians attending the exhibition are not dissidents. Russia is not bringing neutral artists — these artists are affiliated with the government's propaganda efforts. These are not political prisoners, and they have not emigrated. For example, the ensemble Toloka is blessing Russian soldiers as they go to kill Ukrainians.  Our colleagues from Russia's decolonization movement - Katia Margolis, Arts Against Aggression, Memorial Italia, Decolonization NGO, Free Nations League - stage an action “From the Margins of Empire to the Open Lagoon”  from 11:00 to 14:00 on May 6, behind the Russian pavilion. A number of Pussy Riot members are joining in. The action highlights the continuity between external military aggression and internal colonial practices, including repression, forced assimilation, and the systematic silencing — or appropriation — of Indigenous voices.