Syftet med min undersökning har varit att undersöka receptionen kring det ryska konstkollektivet Pussy Riot. Jag har försökt att finna svar på vad det är för omständigheter som ligger bakom uppmärksamheten som gruppen har fått internationellt och i Sverige. Detta har jag gjort genom att utgå från ett genusperspektiv med en speciell inriktning på feministisk konstteori. Med hjälp av internationella artiklar och svensk dagspress har jag gjort en övergripande analys av receptionen kring Pussy Riot och deras konst. Genom materialet har jag kunnat undersöka olika kontexter som Pussy Riots konst har skapat reception inom. Det kritiska förhållningssättet som väst har mot Ryssland har även tagits del av samt Rysslands syn på jämställdhet och yttrandefrihet. Pussy Riot bildades 2011, sedan dess har gruppen uträttat ett flertal performance på oväntade platser i Moskva. Platserna har varit noga utvalda och ofta finns det en symbolisk anknytning till gruppens performance. Pussy Riot har valt punken som uttrycksätt då det är en populärkulturell uttrycksform som gör deras konst lättillgänglig och slagkraftig. Deras färgstarka kläder och rånarluvor är omsorgsfullt utvalda för att få dem att sticka ut men ger dem även en image. Pussy Riots konst går ut på att protestera mot den ryska regimen och dess närstående relation med den rysk-ortodoxa kyrkan. I samband med den ryska revolutionen så var kvinnorörelsen mycket stark i Ryssland. Man hade ett välutvecklat utbildningssystem där kvinnor hade friheten att välja sin egen utbildning. I dagens Ryssland kan man se att den rådande konservativa politiken och den ortodoxa kyrkan har gjort att feminister har det svårt att ta sig fram. Pussy Riot har dock lyckats nå ut med sin kamp för mänskliga rättigheter och jämställdhet genom att vara interaktiva på sociala medier som Youtube. Genom internet har gruppen fått ett stort mediastöd som har ökat uppmärksamheten kring dem. Det har förmedlats genom media, tidningar, tidskrifter, bloggar och sociala medier. Pussy Riots sätt att arbeta med sin konst är alltså välanpassat till dagens media- och internetsamhälle. Västvärlden har en komplicerad bild av Ryssland som har kommit att påverka att Pussy Riot har fått mer uppmärksamhet än vad andra politiskt laddade aktioner har fått. Media har ett kritiskt onyanserat sätt att förhålla sig till Ryssland, detta har haft stor inverkan på att Pussy Riot har fått ta plats i Svenska tidningar. Uppmärksamheten till Pussy Riot har även påverkats av den syn som Ryssland har mot jämställdhet och yttrandefrihet. När tre av gruppens medlemmar dömdes till fängelse efter deras performance i Frälsarkatedralen blev uppmärksamheten ännu större. De har genom det fått tagit plats som frihetskämpar som vi i västvärlden gärna vill följa och stödja.

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate the practices of rough sleeping and inhabiting public space, with a focus on the modern city of Rome. By inhabiting public spaces, people who are homeless expose their private sphere to public view. Paradoxically, this public exposure of the private becomes a means of exclusion according to Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou (2013). Scholars acknowledge public space as constructed by the actions that people carry out in public (Lefebvre 1991; Tschumi 1996; Harvey 2012; Jon Goodbun et al. 2014). People who are homeless certainly contribute to the construction of public space (Petty 2016). However, as asserted by architectural scholar Gill Doron, certain practices 'reveal how the public space is restricted to a very small spectrum of activities, and how many other activities are not permitted' (Doron 2000, p.254). These practices put into question what public these spaces are designed and designated for, questioning why only some activities are regarded as public and why some others take place only at night when spaces are temporary urban voids. Rough sleeping in Rome takes place mostly at night, exposing the city to its own fragilities and contradictions. Public space emerges as precarious. It is defned by social and cultural boundaries, within which urban practices alternate one with the other. These are irreconcilable poles within a parallax gap (Žižek 2009). The theoretical scaffolding of the thesis is structured alongside two other transgressive case studies: Pussy Riot's occupation in Moscow and my interviews with parkour practitioners. These cases have been investigated in comparison with homelessness in order to highlight aspects concerning occupation of space as a performative action under precarious circumstances (precarity). The literary review is combined with auto-ethnographical studies I conducted with a community of rough sleepers, comprising 20-40 members who inhabit a portico area nearby St Peter's Square in Rome. I also ran focus groups, individual interviews and project presentations to people who either are involved in charitable bodies that deal with homelessness or are part of the general public, such as passers-by in St Peter's Square. This study has revealed a series of aspects concerning the negotiation of public space and the role of agency and mediation. This study has stimulated questions concerning the role design can play in discourses of social innovation and inclusion. The research conducted has also outlined diffculties concerning the range of data and the possible response to the many voices heard. How can design re-imagine the centre ground between alternative practices in space? By highlighting the centre as precarious, is it possible to fnd a way of re-thinking the centre? On the basis of this study, the aim of the research has been to look at the state of the gap between these alternative poles, investigating and exploring the concept of precarity. This suggests the possibility of redefning concepts of mediation, social inclusion and architectural activism, articulated further through a series of speculative projects, concluding with the presentation of a 'precarious' object I designed together with the community of rough sleepers in St Peter's Square and COTRAD onlus (a charitable body based in Rome).

During August 2012 the issues of women's rights in Russia attracted attention of the U.S. newspapers, which was an unusual occurrence for this unprivileged region in feminist theorizing. In my thesis I explore the rhetoric around the Pussy Riot trial and verdict. I argue that international media rendered the protest metonymically, thereby reducing its political content to human rights and Cold War frames. I explore the usage of historical references in the narratives, based on these paradigms. The oppressiveness of the Russian government is constructed through Cold War rhetoric by references to Stalinism, which masks the neoliberal content of this case. The confrontation is represented as a clash of cultures based on the contrast between democracy and oppressive regimes, with Pussy Riot as martyrs for Western values and Putin as an Oriental dictator. I argue that this rhetoric has troubling implications for social activism, that democracy could be only achieved through non-violent and individualist symbolic activism which relies on the Western standards. The second part of my thesis analyzes how social movements in the U.S. and Russia interact with each other and influence each other's tactics through interaction with media representations of the Pussy Riot trial and dominant narratives regarding activism. My support for this argument comes from an analysis of the U.S. and Russian movements' responses to the Pussy Riot trial. Embracing a complex combination of political meanings, these events were significantly determined by prolific mass media coverage and mediated interaction between activist groups. / text

In February 2012, less than two weeks before presidential elections in Russia, a two-minute video of young women in brightly colored masks and short dresses was uploaded to YouTube. The video featured four members of the Pussy Riot punk feminist band performing a wild dance in front of the altar of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Lip-syncing to a song, which they called a punk prayer, they beseeched the Virgin Mary to "drive" Vladimir Putin, then the prime minister and a presidential candidate, "away." The performance was followed by the quick arrest of three of the band members and a trial in a criminal court that sentenced them to two years in a penal colony on charges of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and transformed the case into a symbol of the infringement of freedom of expression in Putin's Russia. This research explores the legal and discursive strategies for marginalizing political dissent and discusses the implications of the case for shrinking the arena of legitimate public debate in contemporary Russia. As revealed by a critical discourse analysis of a report by psychological and linguistic experts that formed the basis of the prosecutor's case, it employed a range of discursive devices that normalized conformity and depoliticized the band's critique. Whereas those discursive devices portrayed Pussy Riot's religiously contextualized speech as socially unacceptable, the analysis of the court's decision revealed the mechanism that made it illegal. An analysis of the rationale used by the court to justify the criminal conviction of Pussy Riot showed clear prosecutorial bias. The post-case amendments that were introduced into Russia's Criminal Code and Code of Administrative Violations toughened up the punitive measures in articles associated with insulting religious feelings of citizens and contributed to further authorizing limitations on political speech on religious and moral grounds. As demonstrated by an analysis of the media coverage of the Pussy Riot affair, the Russian press did little to delegitimize this power abuse. The state-run newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta took a clear stance in support of the prosecution. The mainstream newspaper, Izvestia, although not demonstrating a consistent prosecutorial bias, did not provide any sensible alternatives to the government's framing of the affair. Neither did the liberal-oppositional outlet Gazeta.ru. It failed to provide a comprehensive, substantial, and contextualized coverage of Pussy Riot's activism and portrayed them not as agents of change, but as victims of the vigilant, all-powerful state. By doing so, it did not take advantage of the public resonance of the case to elevate a discussion about the feasibility of dissent in an increasingly authoritarian context and thus potentially contributed to undermining the value of political protest. The treatment of the Pussy Riot affair by the Russian state contributed to further infringements of freedom of expression, strengthened the interpenetration of church and state and illuminated the legal system's role as a tool for conserving the status quo of power relations in contemporary Russia.

The study aims to examine international protest art in a local cultural policy context. The exhibition Pussy Riot and the Cossacks – Russian Tradition of Art Resistance opened in June, 2014. The study examines the exhibition process along with the reactions the exhibition gave rise to. The methods used consists of idea- and reception analysis where Geir Vestheim's ideal types about instrumental culture is used along with the concept of the arm lengths priciple. Study shows that there are differences in the opinions on the uses of art between the art gallery and its funding agencies Norrbottens läns landsting and Bodens kommun. Study also shows that the specific local context of the exhibition Pussy Riot and the Cossacks together with the viewers previous experiences plays a part in how the exhibition is percieved.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:21:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Flavia Lucchesi de Carvalho Leite.pdf: 8227727 bytes, checksum: 69c6ad3cff4c1371abee5ecbdab5c429 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-03 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The riot grrrl, a feminist strand of the punk movement, appeared in the early 1990 s in the United States. They were tired with the male chauvinist conduct and minor fascisms imposed on their lives also inside the punk movement. These girls created a new way of life that strengthened their struggle against such conduct. Whether the rocker women who preceded the riot grrrl faced obscure paths to produce their rock and roll, the riots emerged a new way of writing, playing, and singing: they liberated their howl. They drew from the rock maxim sex, drugs and rock and roll and were thus considered by many: sluties. The riot grrrl adopted this word and experienced their sex liberated from the control of sexuality and macho violence. Faced with increased girls interest in the riot grrrl, the music market tried to invest in them but failed since the girls had an clear anti-capitalist attitude, which was radicalized by the Russian riots Pussy Riot around 20 years later. In this sense, the musical market launched products and entertainers that could capture the latent unrest of the young girls attracted by the riots, targeting them as potential consumers. Instead, the market launched rock pop women singers moderately foul-mouthed, or they launched popstars who used a certain feminist discourse that today is largely known as veracity of market. Far from the riot howl against male chauvinism, the women popstars assumed the family and the feminine discourse. In hand against the market and surpassing the riot scene appeared an anonymous girls association, the Pussy Riot, creating their performances by direct action based on feminist punk rock in the streets and private properties of Moscow. This thesis has intent to show the metamorphosis of riot grrrl war machine in the society of control / O riot grrrl, vertente feminista do movimento punk, eclodiu no início dos anos 1990, nos Estados Unidos. Esgotadas com as condutas machistas e os pequenos fascismos que incidiam sobre as suas vidas também no interior do punk, essas garotas inventaram um novo estilo de vida que as fortaleceu no embate contra essas condutas. Se as mulheres roqueiras que as procederam foram empurradas por caminhos tortuosos para conseguirem fazer seu rock n roll, as riots irromperam uma nova maneira de escrever, tocar e cantar: liberaram seu berro. Se ao provarem da máxima roqueira sexo, drogas e rock n roll as mulheres eram tidas como sluties [vadias], as riots se apropriaram dessa palavra e experimentaram seu sexo livre do governo da sexualidade e das violências do macho. Diante do crescente interesse de garotas pelo riot, o mercado da música investiu em contratá-las, mas foi recusado pela atitude anticapitalista anunciada por elas e radicalizada pela riots russas da Pussy Riot, cerca de 20 anos depois. Assim, o mercado lançou produtos e entertainers que pudessem capturar a inquietação latente daquelas jovens que se atraiam pelo riot e fazê-las potenciais consumidoras. De um lado, lançaram cantoras de pop rock moderadamente desbocadas, de outro, lançaram popstars que enunciaram um certo discurso feminista que hoje ganha amplitude como veridicção de mercado. Diferente do berro riot contra as condutas machistas, essas popstars reafirmam a família e a conduta feminina. Na contramão do mercado e avançando para além da cena riot, acontece a Pussy Riot, associação de garotas anônimas que faz suas obras por ação direta ao som de punk rock feminista pelas ruas e estabelecimentos privados de Moscou. Esta dissertação procura mostrar as metamorfoses da máquina de guerra riot grrrl na sociedade de controle

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:55:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Flavia Lucchesi de Carvalho Leite.pdf: 8227727 bytes, checksum: 69c6ad3cff4c1371abee5ecbdab5c429 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-03 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The riot grrrl, a feminist strand of the punk movement, appeared in the early 1990 s in the United States. They were tired with the male chauvinist conduct and minor fascisms imposed on their lives also inside the punk movement. These girls created a new way of life that strengthened their struggle against such conduct. Whether the rocker women who preceded the riot grrrl faced obscure paths to produce their rock and roll, the riots emerged a new way of writing, playing, and singing: they liberated their howl. They drew from the rock maxim sex, drugs and rock and roll and were thus considered by many: sluties. The riot grrrl adopted this word and experienced their sex liberated from the control of sexuality and macho violence. Faced with increased girls interest in the riot grrrl, the music market tried to invest in them but failed since the girls had an clear anti-capitalist attitude, which was radicalized by the Russian riots Pussy Riot around 20 years later. In this sense, the musical market launched products and entertainers that could capture the latent unrest of the young girls attracted by the riots, targeting them as potential consumers. Instead, the market launched rock pop women singers moderately foul-mouthed, or they launched popstars who used a certain feminist discourse that today is largely known as veracity of market. Far from the riot howl against male chauvinism, the women popstars assumed the family and the feminine discourse. In hand against the market and surpassing the riot scene appeared an anonymous girls association, the Pussy Riot, creating their performances by direct action based on feminist punk rock in the streets and private properties of Moscow. This thesis has intent to show the metamorphosis of riot grrrl war machine in the society of control / O riot grrrl, vertente feminista do movimento punk, eclodiu no início dos anos 1990, nos Estados Unidos. Esgotadas com as condutas machistas e os pequenos fascismos que incidiam sobre as suas vidas também no interior do punk, essas garotas inventaram um novo estilo de vida que as fortaleceu no embate contra essas condutas. Se as mulheres roqueiras que as procederam foram empurradas por caminhos tortuosos para conseguirem fazer seu rock n roll, as riots irromperam uma nova maneira de escrever, tocar e cantar: liberaram seu berro. Se ao provarem da máxima roqueira sexo, drogas e rock n roll as mulheres eram tidas como sluties [vadias], as riots se apropriaram dessa palavra e experimentaram seu sexo livre do governo da sexualidade e das violências do macho. Diante do crescente interesse de garotas pelo riot, o mercado da música investiu em contratá-las, mas foi recusado pela atitude anticapitalista anunciada por elas e radicalizada pela riots russas da Pussy Riot, cerca de 20 anos depois. Assim, o mercado lançou produtos e entertainers que pudessem capturar a inquietação latente daquelas jovens que se atraiam pelo riot e fazê-las potenciais consumidoras. De um lado, lançaram cantoras de pop rock moderadamente desbocadas, de outro, lançaram popstars que enunciaram um certo discurso feminista que hoje ganha amplitude como veridicção de mercado. Diferente do berro riot contra as condutas machistas, essas popstars reafirmam a família e a conduta feminina. Na contramão do mercado e avançando para além da cena riot, acontece a Pussy Riot, associação de garotas anônimas que faz suas obras por ação direta ao som de punk rock feminista pelas ruas e estabelecimentos privados de Moscou. Esta dissertação procura mostrar as metamorfoses da máquina de guerra riot grrrl na sociedade de controle

There is a consistent thread throughout Russian history of governmental management of culture. Tsars and Communist bureaucrats alike have sought to variously promote, censor, or exploit writers, filmmakers, and musicians to control and define the country's cultural content. Often, these measures were intended not necessarily to cultivate Russia's aesthetic spirit, but to accomplish specific policy goals. The promotion of a State ideology and other efforts to stave of social unrest were chief among them. With the fall of Soviet power and the loss of an official ideology promoted by the state, the concept of cultural politics fell to the wayside. It has remained largely ignored ever since. Despite numerous high-profile incidents of persecution of the creative class, analysts have not linked them together as part of an overarching cultural policy. However, the Russian government under Vladimir Putin has faced consistent policy challenges since the beginning of the 2000s that could be mitigated through the implementation of such a policy. In some ways, the breadth and character of State involvement in the cultural sphere follows the pattern of the country’s autocratic past. In others, it demonstrates that it has adapted these policies to function in the hybrid regime that Putin has created, as opposed to the totalitarian ones that preceded it. A recent case that exemplifies this new breed of cultural policy is the persecution of the radical feminist punk band Pussy Riot. While largely unknown to many Russian citizens, the group’s overt opposition to the patriarchal model of rule established by Putin with the help of the Russian Orthodox Church was met by the most comprehensive crackdown within the cultural sphere since perestroika. Examining this case in detail can reveal the extent to which the Russian government is concerned about its ability to maintain popular legitimacy. The fact that it has continued to try to manage the cultural sphere may indicate the level of democracy that has or has not been established in Russia so far today. / text

One of the most significant acts of protest against the rule of Vladimir Putin was staged by the punk group Pussy Riot in Christ the Saviour’s Cathedral in Moscow in February 2012. The protest was one of several actions during the last decade where Russian artists had questioned the role of the Russian Orthodox Church, but this time the role of the Church in relation to the State rule was directly highlighted. This caused strong reactions internationally and in Russia, and there is a need to look into the arguments used in the debate in detail, using discourse analysis. This thesis, therefore, investigates what discourses the most prominent stakeholders – the Church, the State and Pussy Riot – rely on in the public debate around the Pussy Riot performance and the trial. Interconnections between different discourses are also investigated in order to gain a better insight into how religion, politics and popular culture interact in Russia today. The most important conclusion in this thesis is that religion and religious discourse affect legal and political practices in Russia today in ways that are not normally expected in a modern and secular state.

This thesis examines the recent emergence of corporeal protest art in Russia. Through analyses of cultural, social, and economic shifts in the post-Soviet Era, I observe how this corporeal turn reflects a significant cultural transition away from the literary text, which has traditionally held a role of major importance in Russian culture. Detailed analysis of the contemporary performances of Pussy Riot and Petr Pavlensky are conducted in order to elucidate the social and political causes and implications of such a shift. Manifestation of oppositional discourse on the site of the human body is understood theoretically through Giorgio Agamben’s biopolitics, Mikhail Bakhtin’s grotesque body, and Inke Arns’ and Sylvia Sasse’s theory of subversive affirmation. Interestingly, this artistic divergence has coincided with the rise of relative economic and social wellbeing in Russia – conditions that tend to foster the development of a burgeoning public sphere, now standing at odds with an increase in political repression. Oppositionists and protest artists are, therefore, exploring new and unconventional ways of expressing dissent. My study contextualizes these new methods of expression within the larger tradition of the cultural expression of political will, examining the ways in which these works are readable through Russian cultural norms and to whom they speak. / Graduate