Russian Actionism as Biopolitical Performance: Shifting Grounds and Forms of Resistance

Abstract

This article traces the development of Russian actionism through a biopolitical lens. Emerging in the 1990s as a public enactment of post-Soviet society’s regression from bios to zoē, actionism became more consciously biopolitical in the twenty-first century as a succession of artists sought to challenge the biopoliticization of life under Vladimir Putin. Focusing on the actions and statements of Voina, Pussy Riot, Pyotr Pavlensky, and Katrin Nenasheva, the author identifies four main tactics of resistance, gradually leading actionism away from its roots in aestheticized violence toward the cultivation of practices of radical care. The article concludes with a brief overview of actions performed in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.