Pussy Riot Prison Performance Continues as Protests Erupt Outside MOCA Los Angeles

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Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen branch in Los Angeles closed Sunday as police in riot gear and soldiers confronted immigration raid protestors, while inside Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova continued her performance.

The Russian artist was four days into a ten-day presentation called Police State which relives her two-year imprisonment following a 2012 conviction for an anti-Vladimir Putin video filmed in a church.

After the museum closed Sunday to ensure public safety, Tolokonnikova livestreamed protest sounds into her cell and posted: ‘Police State is closed due to the police state.’ She plans to release the resulting 80-hour audio as experimental music, according to The Art Newspaper.

 The performance is a critique of authoritarianism that sees the artist confined to a cell where she sews prison uniforms and generates soundscapes blending lullabies, harsh noise, and actual prison recordings.

‘I tap into something primal when I’m performing—a very universal rage we can all relate to,’ Tolokonnikova told Ocula in 2024. 

The protests began Friday after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided L.A.’s garment district, detaining workers suspected of lacking documentation.

On Sunday, president Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard soldiers to the city—a move opposed by local officials and unprecedented since 1965. He argued the protests are ‘a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States’. 

Meanwhile, California governor Gavin Newsom called the move ‘illegal’, filing a lawsuit on Monday that accused president Trump of going against the U.S. Constitution’s provision for state rights. 

Citing her experience, Tolokonnikova told AFP that Trump’s return to office sparked an ‘erosion of the system of checks and balances’ she called ‘very dangerous’. She warned that people underestimate how quickly autocrats can dismantle freedoms.

Visitors to Police State can view Tolokonnikova through wall slats or security camera footage in a cell containing a metal bunk, toilet, inmate-made drawings, and sewing machine.

The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA plans to reopen Thursday 12 June. The exhibition runs through to 15 June. —[O]

Main image: Nadya Tolokonnikova, POLICE STATE (2025). Performance documentation from The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles. Courtesy MOCA. Photo: Yulia Shur.