Revealing the cover of our POLITICS issue by Nikita Teryoshin @teryoshi. This summer, Pussy Riot invited Nikita Teryoshin to photograph their protest against the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale; shooting the action, he helped propel it into the wider world, entering a complex nexus of expression and publicity. What does it mean to use images to help protest against art? Is photography part of politics, and if so can it also be stopped? Our cover feature by Lillian Wilkie sums up the questions in this issue of BJP, which is themed Politics and considers the relationship between photography and the way our world is operated. “You could say the photographs become more important than the action itself. There were maybe 200 people there at that moment. But the only thing the world will see are the pictures,” says Nikita Teryoshin. Including Teryoshin’s images of Pussy Riot, arms fairs, art fairs, and parades, this issue of BJP also explores how images have become part of the war in Ukraine, or helped Jean-Marie Le Pen establish his far-right party in France – as well as how artists are subverting political posturing or building cases against the authorities that have failed them. We are living in interesting times; are images helping shape them and if so, to what end? POLITICS is available exclusively to all BJP Members on our Online Library. Subscribe via the link in bio and get full digital access to 8+ years of back issues, plus free entry to Portrait of Britain Vol. 9, now open for entries. Become a Member: 1854.photo/4Bmltcx 📷️: Nikita Teryoshin