Russian Dissident Leads Off Watermill Center Lecture Series
The Watermill Center’s annual Scaler Summer Lecture Series will launch on Monday at 7:30 p.m. with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a founding member of the Russian feminist art collective Pussy Riot. The series brings leading figures in the arts, sciences, and humanities to the center for free talks open to its summer resident artists and the public.
Subsequent guests will be Philip Glass, the composer (July 30), Jeffrey Hoffman, a former astronaut and aerospace engineer (Aug. 4), Fern Mallis, a writer and fashion consultant (Aug. 7), the opera singer Jessye Norman (Aug. 11), and Tom Hennes, an exhibition designer (Aug. 13).
“The roster involves soliciting suggestions from everyone on the staff who might have an idea,” according to William Wagner, the center’s managing director. “All of these ideas are then crystallized and added to by one person. Kate Eberstadt was instrumental this year in pulling together not only others’ input, including Robert Wilson’s suggestions, but adding her own very special influence on what I believe will be the best series ever.”
Pussy Riot, the feminist punk rock protest group based in Moscow, became an international cause célèbre in 2012 after a protest performance at a Moscow cathedral led to the arrest and imprisonment of Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich, and Ms. Tolokonnikova for “hooliganism.” Since her release after 21 months in prison, Ms. Tolokonnikova has continued to fight against unjust imprisonment, state corruption, and authoritarianism.
In the aftermath of the arrests, human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticized the treatment of the women, as did the majority of the American and European press, some Russian human rights activists, and artists such as Madonna, Yoko Ono, Bjork, and Paul McCartney.
“We’re flattered, of course, that Madonna and Bjork have offered to perform with us,” said one of the group’s members. “But the only performances we’ll participate in are illegal ones. We refuse to perform as part of the capitalist system, at concerts where they sell tickets.”
Mr. Glass is widely known for his innovative instrumental, vocal, and operatic music, including the opera “Einstein on the Beach,” for which he collaborated with Mr. Wilson.
Dr. Hoffman, who made five space shuttle flights between 1985 and 1995, is now professor of the practice of aerospace engineering at M.I.T.
Ms. Mallis has been instrumental in transforming New York Fashion Week into one of the most important fashion events on the international circuit and hosts a conversation series, “Fashion Icons With Fern Mallis,” at the 92nd Street Y.
After moving to Europe in 1969, Ms. Norman established herself in Europe’s leading opera houses before returning to the United States, where she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1983 and subsequently performed at two presidential inaugurations.
Mr. Hennes is the founder and creative director of Thinc, which has designed exhibitions for museums, zoos, aquariums, and a variety of corporate clients.
Past lecturers have included Marina Abramovic, Hilton Als, Marianne Faithfull, Daniel Libeskind, Ishmael Reed, George Soros, and DK Spooky, among many others.