Nadya Tolokonnikova’s Dollar Bills series turns the quiet authority of US currency into a charged feminist battleground. Each denomination, from 1 to 100, retains the familiar male portrait yet overlays it with Pussy Riot’s signature balaclava, converting the note into a vivid emblem of resistance rather than deference.

Conceived in collaboration with CIRCA and launched around International Women’s Day, the series explicitly addresses the century-long absence of women from US paper money, framing every bill as a compact critique of patriarchal power and the gendered economies it sustains. Tolokonnikova draws on her history of activist performance to weaponise a mass-circulation image; the note becomes both reliquary and protest placard, situating the work within a broader practice of interventionist, anti-authoritarian art.

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A woman has not been featured on US paper money in over 100 years since Martha Washington’s portrait was featured on the one silver dollar note in the 1880s and 90s. There are currently seven bills in circulation: $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. These bills all feature men, each one a symbol of patriarchy.

A distinctive nod to Punk Prayer, each screen-print in this limited series displays a black and white screen-printed US paper note and colour screen-printed balaclava. Altering the characteristics of the original dollar bills, Tolokonnikova's signature replaces the US Secretary of the Treasury's signature. Other hidden details include a customised Serial Number 'PR03C2023', with each letter symbolising: PR (Pussy Riot) 03 (March) C2023 (CIRCA 2023).