Copenhagen Contemporary Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary with New Performance Festival Featuring Pussy Riot

Copenhagen Contemporary marks its 10-year anniversary in 2026 with the launch of CC10 – a three-day performance festival that, from 23 to 25 January 2026, will transform the iconic halls on Refshaleøen into a living, open field for artistic experiments, intense encounters, and socially critical visions.

The festival is conceived as a tribute to art as a living space for experimentation, creativity, and resistance, where audiences are not just spectators but are invited to participate, listen, react, and be present. CC10 brings together international leading artists alongside emerging and notable voices from Copenhagen’s experimental art scene.

One of the festival’s highlights is a special concert/performance with Nadya Tolokonnikova, the founder of the Russian art and activist collective Pussy Riot. Known for their uncompromising blend of art, music, and political resistance, Nadya brings Pussy Riot’s signature energy to Copenhagen Contemporary in a performance celebrating the institution’s 10-year anniversary. The performance will be a mix of audio and visual elements provided by her Berlin based gallery – Nagel Draxler.

The Russian Ministry of Justice officially labeled Pussy Riot as an extremist organization on 15 December 2025. We know for a fact the experience at CC10 will be extreme – in intensity, presence, and artistic necessity.

As a central figure in Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova has since 2011 helped define the movement as a feminist, punk-based, performative response to political oppression, censorship, and attacks on freedom of expression and minority rights in Russia.

At CC10, Nadya Tolokonnikova will participate not only in a performance but also in a talk with CC’s director, Marie Laurberg, discussing activism, art, and resistance in a contemporary climate shaped by political pressure and cultural struggles.

The CC10 program also features performances by, among others, Monster Chetwynd, who brings together wildness and butterfly poetry with 15 performers; Miriam Kongstad, performing the gripping solo performance HARD PLAY; Silas Inoue, who brings his work to life in the exhibition Soft Robots; and Filip Vest, presenting his already legendary Self Tape. The festival also includes talks and lectures with Lea Korsgaard and Sara Alfort, as well as a Sunday concert by the fast-rising artist Fine.

In addition, the influential party collective Unearth is co-curator of Saturday’s evening festival program. In recent years, the collective has made a strong mark on the Copenhagen club scene with international, highly sought-after electronic acts. On this evening, Unearth, in collaboration with CC, invites a star-studded lineup to Hall 6. Lineup TBA.

"With CC10, Copenhagen Contemporary celebrates that in just ten years, we have succeeded in creating a significant new institution for contemporary art in Denmark," says director Marie Laurberg. "We celebrate Copenhagen as a vibrant and diverse art city with global resonance, and we look forward with a festival that insists on art’s role as a space for community, friction, and imagination."

Much of the CC10 program will be free following paid entrance, with only lectures, selected talks, and concerts requiring a separate ticket. The preliminary program and tickets can be found at copenhagencontemporary.org.

CC10 – Copenhagen Contemporary Performance Festival
📍 Copenhagen Contemporary, Refshaleøen
📅 23–25 January 2026