DO THIS: Pussy Riot’s Coming to Philly Next Week

Nadya  Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina, perhaps better known as two members of Russian art collective Pussy Riot, are coming to Penn next Tuesday for a screening of their latest video and a discussion about their activism—which earned them a Lennon Ono Grant for Peace.

Pussy Riot made headlines in 2012 when they were imprisoned for staging an anti-Putin demonstration at the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The aftermath of the whole thing was chronicled in the HBO documentary Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acMN8xUWqUQ

The event at Penn takes place Wednesday, March 17th, at 4:30 pm in Harrison Auditorium (3260 South Street). It will begin with a screening of  Tolokonnikova and Alekhina’s video I Can’t Breathe, which is dedicated to Eric Garner and named for the words he repeated 11 times before his death in Staten Island. Following the film, they will discuss what they’ve been up to lately, including opening a prisoner’s rights NGO, and launching an independent news service, Mendiazona, which “focuses on courts, law enforcement, and the prison system in Russia.”