The Balaclava as Affect Generator: Free Pussy Riot Protests and Transnational Iconicity

August 17, 2012 was a “Global Day of Action” in support of Pussy Riot, a radical feminist performance group from Russia who had been incarcerated for their “Punk Prayer” at the altar of the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow in February 2012. This paper reads the “Punk Prayer” as an image event with an extensive afterlife, mobilized through the transnational icon of the balaclava. By reading its production (socially and spatially) along with its circulation, evident in solidarity protest images, it argues that transnational iconicity enables transnational solidarity, an affective sense of connection and responsibility.