Political candidate uses breasts in artistic protest against Moscow demolition project

Could breasts be the key to change and electoral success for Moscow City Council candidate Lyucia Stein? Last week the political hopeful installed plaster copies of her breasts onto six residential buildings marked for demolition in Moscow’s vast khrushchevki clearance programme, which will see 1.6 million people lose their homes.

21-year-old Ms Stein told Russian magazine Afisha that she had teamed up with artist Artem Loskutov to turn her bosom into a potent political symbol, with the hope of putting a halt to government plans to tear down around 8,000 Soviet-era housing blocks.

“I want to defend my district, but I can’t be everywhere,” Ms Stein said in an interview with Afisha. “[...] The breasts serve as amulets protecting [the buildings] from demolition.”

While the plaster casts are currently limited to her home Basmanny district, Ms Stein stated that she hoped to expand the project.

“I am turning to ancient rituals as a rescue mission of last resort against a ruthless Leviathan,” said the electoral candidate, who takes inspiration from the Venus of Willendorf figurine and Eugène Delacroix’s famous 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People.

Source: The Moscow Times