ALEKSANDRA SKOCHILENKO

Arts Award | Nominee | Freedom of Expression Awards

Artist and musician Aleksandra Skochilenko was arrested on 11 April 2022. In response to Russia’s unlawful and full-scale invasion of Ukraine, she had participated in anti-war rallies (for which she was arrested, detained overnight and fined), created a series of anti-war postcards, organized anti-war jam sessions and wrote, composed, and produced an anti-war song, which she performed in public. She took part in a protest where Russians exchanged price tags in supermarkets for anti-war leaflets with various numbers related to the war in Ukraine, such as the number of casualties. After spending 19 months in pre-trial detention, in November 2023, Sasha was charged under Article 207.3 of Russia’s Criminal Code ("Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation") and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Sasha’s art did not stop when she was imprisoned. She documented her life in prison through her drawings, which have been published online through her public online diary and independent Russian media outlets such as Meduza and Paperpaper, as well as being exhibited in Tbilisi, Moscow, London, and Copenhagen. Sasha has long written about mental health after creating an educational online-comic which later became “A Book about Depression”, which has been published in Russia and Ukraine and translated into several European languages. She is currently working on a comic book project titled, “A Book about Repressions”, while also writing about surviving prison with bipolar disorder and experiencing PTSD. In August the Russian and various western governments agreed to the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War. Sasha was part of the cohort released from Russian prisons and now is based in exile.

“From the very day of her arrest Sasha treats her persecution as ‘an anti-war performance, that is produced and fully funded by the state’. Her trial beats its own purpose: the state's attempt to punish her for the most humble and otherwise invisible plea for peace amplifies it exponentially. On behalf of Sasha we'd like to say that we're very proud and infinitely grateful that she's chosen as one of the nominees for the Award, and we're certain that this nomination alone provides Sasha with an opportunity to make her message sound even louder.”

The Free Sasha Skochilenko! campaign team