Let’s discuss sex workers’ rights, adult play, sexism and more!

Join us for a conversation between University of the Underground board member Nadya of Pussy Riot and Stoya this Friday 5th March (11am PST/ 7pm GMT/ 8pm CET).

**NADYA TOLOKONNIKOVA**

Activist, Co-Founder of Pussy Riot 

Nadya Tolokonnikova is an artist, political activist, and founding member of Pussy Riot, the punk rock art collective that garnered international headlines, and support, after several members were sent to jail following a performance in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Tolokonnikova is the recipient of The Lennon Ono Grant for Peace, and is a co-recipient of The Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought. Following her release in 2013, she opened the Mordovia office of Zona Prava, a prisoners rights non-governmental organization. Later, she started MediaZona, an independent news service now partnered with The Guardian. 

She has spoken before the US Congress and British Parliament and has appeared on stage with figures such as Bill Clinton and Muhammad Yunus. Following a meeting with Julian Assange in November 2014, she became a board member of his Courage Foundation. Recently, Tolokonnikova appeared as herself in the hit show House of Cards. She also performed the new Pussy Riot song “Refugees In” as part of the artist Banksy’s Dismaland exhibition in 2015. Together with Noam Chomsky, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is a board member of the charity University of the Underground which aims to support free, pluralistic and transnational education worldwide.

**STOYA**

Stoya is an American pornographic actress, actress and model.  Stoya is also a writer who has written on subjects like sex workers’ rights and identity politics for publications like the New York Times, VICE, The Guardian. The Verge and Refinery29. Stoya is also an entrepreneur who launched a site of curated smut called TRENCHCOATx with fellow adult star Kayden Kross. In 2018, Stoya launched the website zerospaces.com with her business partner, comedian Mitcz Marzoni. Zerospaces describes itself as a “sexually explicit media project” with videos, photosets and articles pertaining to sex and sexuality. Though Stoya indicated in February of 2020 that the platform would move to a monthly release schedule in April of that year, by July, only one 2020 issue of Zerospaces had been released.