Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova staged a performance art protest for reproductive rights on the steps of the Indiana supreme court building on Tuesday.
Joined by students and faculty from Indiana University, the longtime activist and artist said that the demonstration was prompted by both Tolokonnikova’s frustration with the current state of reproductive rights in the state and the university’s invitation for her to participate in a ticketed Q&A with students about authoritarianism and activism’s intersection with art.
“I am a great believer that you should combine theory and practice,” Tolokonnikova said. “It’s fine to talk, but I called for the students and participants of the conversation to join me for a live performance.”
Featuring a 10ft-tall inflatable vagina, plumes of hot pink smoke, and the Russian feminist protest and performance art collective’ signature balaclavas, Tolokonnikova said Tuesday’s action was an homage to Pussy Riot’s previous actions and her mentor, feminist artist Judy Chicago, who has often deployed smoke to demonstrate taking up a space. God Save Abortion, a new Pussy Riot song performed by Tolokonnikova, was also debuted at the demonstration.
“It’s very important to go to places where people like me are a minority and they need help,” Tolokonnikova said of the importance of the protest’s location – a state where abortion is now banned. “I could come to New York, but it’s like preaching to the choir, whereas, if you go to Texas, Alabama or Indiana, I feel like we can make a bigger difference. I’m making a contribution in the way that I know how.”
Maria Bucur-Deckard, a gender studies professor at the University of Indiana who moderated Tolokonnikova’s conversation with students on Monday evening, said she has noted a swell in student-led protests and a marked interest in the country’s complicated history with reproductive justice since abortion was outlawed in Indiana in which a total ban after conception took effect in August.
“I see students being more and more mobilized around this,” Bucur-Deckard said. “A course I’m teaching on international feminist debate has a section on reproductive rights, and I’ve made that a big feature because students have asked for it. They want to understand what’s going on, where this is coming from and why it’s happening now. I’ve offered them some very sobering examples of the cost of what’s happening in Indiana now in terms of what the state will look like 10 years from now, for instance. The students have been listening and they’re concerned. They want to see change happen.”
Tolokonnikova’s protest took place just days after the Indiana supreme court’s reprimand of the Republican attorney general, Todd Rokita, for statements he made about Dr Caitlin Bernard, the Indiana obstetrician-gynecologist who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to the state from Ohio after the US supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade. In July 2022, Rokita referred to Bernard as an “abortion activist acting as a doctor” on Fox News. Rokita’s comments were part of a national media firestorm during which Bernard was also publicly reprimanded for speaking about the case and vilified by conservatives. Rokita has since sued Indiana University Health, the largest hospital system in the state, alleging that it mishandled the 10-year-old rape victim’s case.
At the same time last week, the University of Indiana made headlines as the board of trustees said it could soon vote to sever ties with the Kinsey Institute, a longtime partner of the school. Storied for its study of human sexuality since 1947, the Kinsey Institute recently suffered a blow after the Republican representative Lorissa Sweet claimed it was conducting sexual experiments on children. State lawmakers – led by Sweet – soon passed an amendment that effectively blocked the institute’s public funding. This news, too, is now weighing heavily on some students.
Zoe Bardon, a gender studies student who participated in the protest, said that she hopes Tuesday’s action draws attention to the difficulties of being a woman and “just a person in general” in the state of Indiana.
“I do a lot of political organizing in voter registration, and trying to convince young people to vote in the first place is so difficult when you have people in power like Todd Rokita,” Bardon said, citing that in 2022 the state had the nation’s third highest maternal mortality rate. “It feels like you can’t make a difference at some point. This is my last year and my plan beyond graduation is to move out of Indiana. I know that’s the case for a lot of students. We cannot see ourselves living, starting our careers and raising families in Indiana when we know that we won’t have access to healthcare if nothing changes.”
She added: “It’s discouraging.
“We’re going to see, as a state, a brain drain of a lot of talented individuals who feel like Indiana is a hostile environment for a lot of people.”
Bucur-Deckard said she hopes students realize in the continued fight for reproductive rights in the state that “not speaking out means that you’re letting somebody else define your interests.
“That is not what I’m hoping young people in Indiana want to do,” she added.
