Anna Banana

Anna Banana (Canadian, b. Anne Lee Long, 1940) is a distinctive voice in the fields of conceptual, performance and mail art. She has been described as a conceptualist rather than an image maker, with her artistic activities spiralling out and giving rise to new projects, utilizing whatever media the concept requires. Anna Banana is known as a performance artist who creates interactive events as a way of engaging audiences to become active participants. Anna Banana has been active in the international mail art network since 1971. Her involvement has provided materials and ideas for other work and an ongoing connection to an international community of artists who are, like her, more interested in creating and exchanging ideas and small artworks than they are in producing art for a market. From the 1960s, Anna Banana met and collaborated with numerous Vancouver-based mail artists, including Ken Friedman, Michael Morris, Vincent Trasov, Gary Lee-Nova, Dana Atchley, Eric Metcalfe, Kate Craig and Glenn Lewis. In 1973, she moved to San Francisco where she had established contacts with Bay Area mail artists. It was in San Francisco that Anna Banana published her first issue of VILE magazine in 1974, a parody of both LIFE magazine and General Idea’s FILE Megazine.