Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina has announced plans to open a "women's-only" museum in Montenegro.



With the help of fellow activists, Alyokhina is working to open the New Balkan Women's Museum in Montenegro in an effort to address long-spanning issues with gender equality in the art world, in a space referred to as, "for women, by women, about women". The museum will employ only female curators and administrators, with the project looking to solely display and promote female artists.



Currently, women make up just 30% of artists represented by galleries in New York and Los Angeles; with women running just a quarter of major US art institutions and earning a mere 71 cents for every $1 earned by men. Artist Micol Hebron told Artnet, "We have a bias in not respecting and not being interested in a feminine way of seeing the world. You are more likely to make money selling or reselling art by a man than a woman. And it's not because women make work that's less good. It's because we've made capitalism a patriarchal system.''



Alyokhina's own motivations appear driven partially by her own experiences and by the need for safe avenues for female creative expression. As she explained to Artnet, "In the media, in public spaces—a lot of people are just scared to say what they really are thinking. Because if you do it, you are going to prison."

