FREE PUSSY RIOT

In March 2012, three members of the Russian, punk-feminist art collective Pussy Riot -  Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevitch - were taken into custody by the Russian authorities following their participation in a protest at the Russian Orthodox ‘Cathedral of Christ the Saviour’ in Moscow. Their detainment was seen by many as a cruel, heavy-handed act of oppression, carried out to discourage free thought and speech in Russia. In retaliation, Peaches & Simonne Jones wrote the song Free Pussy Riot!

Peaches directed the accompanying music video, which grew out of her documentation of a protest march she organised in Berlin where artists, activists and free-thinkers joined forces - many of them decked out in Pussy Riot’s famous, vibrant balaclavas. Peaches later enlisted the help of a barrage of artists; Kate Nash, The Knife, Lykke Li, Miike Snow, Peter Bjorn and John, Light Asylum, Deichkind, The Hives, Dave Catching, Screamclub, JD Samson, Marshall Crenshaw, Wayne Kramer, Bonaparte, Margaret Cho, Dave Hill, Nick Zinner, Jake Shears and Bun E. Carlos, all of whom lent their support to the video and the protest.

The video launched alongside a petition for the women’s release, which went on to amass almost 200,000 signatures from around the globe.