Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founding member of Russian punk rock band and protest group Pussy Riot, announced Wednesday the launching of a Web3 metaverse community space called Utopia on IMVU, the popular virtual social network. This follows Tolokonnikova's initiation of Unicorn DAO earlier this year, a platform for utilizing NFTs with female artists and challenging the male-dominated space in the same realm.

The Utopia experience will center around "The Pink Church of Feminism," which will be clad in Pussy Riot's signature pink, white and black colors and users will be able to interact with each other and roleplay their own music performances with avatars. Utopia aims to provide an inclusive environment for "women, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ creatives." Along with the community space, Tolokonnikova is releasing an NFT collection of digital wearables for the IMVU platform.

Tolokonnikova has been deeply embedded in activism long before her immersion in Web3 space, as evidenced by her involvement with Pussy Riot's anti-Vladimir Putin demonstration in a Church back in 2012, which resulted in her and another member being arrested and sentenced to two years in prison. More recently, Russia has added the musician to its wanted list because of Pussy Riot's short protest film: "Putin's Ashes." This project was previously joined with another NFT entitled "Virgin Mary, Please Become A Feminist," illustrating the religious figure from Christianity in the form of a vagina.

The showcase of the NFT series designed by Tolokonnikova and from blockchain asset developer MetaJuice, will occur at Wednesday's invite-only NFT.NYC event. This news follows other notable events in the metaverse, such as when Decentraland- a virtual reality universe- collaborated with Degree in April 2022 for the inclusion of disabling people in the virtual marathon.

This project marks a new era of inclusivity and creativity in the metaverse world, which is deeply founded on the notion of building a better space for all. As Tolokonnikova puts it: “It’s very thrilling to launch Utopia in IMVU and make it feminist, queer, diverse and radical. It has always been a dream of mine to create a Pink Church of Feminism. Eventually, I’ll find a way to build it in real life. But the first step is to launch this vision in the metaverse.”



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