Chto Delat Newspaper as the Art Collective’s Framework: Twenty Years of DIY Publishing Activity

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian society is passing an existential catastrophe, meaning falling out of the civilized world and ever-growing state repression. The voices from the anti-war position on behalf of the artists expressed in their primary that is aesthetic language are rare and, therefore, even more significant. Chto Delat, a prominent collective from St. Petersburg, has had a clear anti-Putin stance since its very constituency in 2003, which the artists have clearly expressed in 43 issues of their self-published newspaper. I offer an overview of the group’s publishing production that will turn twenty years next summer. Chto Delat newspaper is a precarious document exposing the current space of language as a limbo where communication gets increasingly ideologized. I reveal how this tendency is being challenged by artists, who oppose the nature of art to muteness, asserting one’s right to speak as a condition for the continuation of life itself.