No - The Book

Your guide to Meduza's tenth anniversary exhibition

"No" is an exhibition curated and organized by Meduza's newsroom at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien gallery in Berlin, bringing together artists and journalists to reflect on the events of the past decade and explore why the world has become so fractured. This book, published for the exhibition's opening, is not only a complete guide but also includes bonus materials that weren't displayed in Berlin.

Like the exhibition itself, the book is divided into nine sections based on key themes the curators identified by reviewing 10 years of Meduza headlines: dictatorship, censorship, exile, war, resistance, fear, loneliness, polarization, and hope.

Each chapter is prefaced with an essay written exclusively for the project. In "Censorship," for example, an anonymous Meduza journalist still working in Russia recounts how state restrictions on freedom of speech have forced her to always take safety measures and effectively live a double life. In "Loneliness," a mother who has never left Russia writes anonymously about being separated from her son, who works for Meduza, sharing what it's like to continue living in a country where your loved one is associated with an outlawed "undesirable organization."

The book also includes interviews with artists, photos of their work, and extracts from Meduza's editorial discussions, as well as a series of monologues from Mikhail Durnenkov's documentary project based on conversations with Meduza journalists and friends of the newsroom. These include Meduza CEO Galina Timchenko's account of how media censorship evolved in modern Russia, film critic Anton Dolin on his experience emigrating abroad, and journalists Elena Kostyuchenko, Lilia Yapparova, and Taisia Bekbulatova on covering Russia's war against Ukraine.

We dedicate "No" and this book to everyone who still dares to resist.