Natalya Eryomenko, Vera Ermolaeva Foundation of Contemporary Feminist Art

Founded by activists and artists, including members of the Russian punk- rock band and feminist group Pussy Riot, the Vera Ermolaeva Foundationof Contemporary Feminist Art Initiatives honors Vera Ermolaeva, a pioneer of Non-Objective Art, Suprematism, and Constructivism in Russia. In her youth, Ermolaeva worked to preserve anonymously made graphic-art posters from the cultural awakening in St. Petersburg in the late 19th century. In 1934, during the Great Purges, she was arrested as a “nonconforming artist” and sent to a Kazakhstan prison colony, where she was sentenced to be shot. The collective seeks to further Ermolaeva’s commitment to feminist art in Russia by supporting female artists.