Maria Aljochina

Maria (Mascha) Aljochina is a Russian conceptual artist and political activist who was a member of the art collective Pussy Riot. In 2012, she was sentenced to two years in prison after an anti-Putin performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour; she was released in December 2013 under an amnesty law. In 2014, she co-founded Sona Prava, an NGO for prisoners’ rights, with Nadya Tolokonnikova. Aljochina received the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace and the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking.