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AS A TENTACLE OF THE WORLD
I INVENT AND TOUCH TODAY
WITH INFINITE TENDERNESS
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ANNA KUSHNEROVA
PERFORMANCE & VISUAL ARTIST
BASED IN DEVON, UK
Anna weaves worlds with performance, installation, sculpture, moving image, and sound.
In her practice, she seeks a deeper, enchanted experience of being-in the world. Drawing from Butoh methods, she often explores ‘becoming’ animal, plant, spirit by leaning into liquid intelligence of the body and its inner multidimensional Dance, accessing its memory of perpetually morphing, evolving and enfolding organisms, the Dreaming of sentient matter.
Her Performances explore instinctual response, play and ceremony.
The body(s) become vessel for magic and prayer.
Having learnt ceramics and textile, Anna often works with costumes and sculpture as body augmentations, metamorphic limbs, masks and set like installations.
Her ongoing interest in indigenous rituals, and life in the forests often lead to encounters with the elemental matrix (earth, water, wood) where the body can actively participate in the Unfolding. Body, as complex amplifier of sensation then becomes both a catalyst for change and the dative for movement and meaning. The landscape is often a gateway, an entrance into the perceptual field that holds her Gently Violent Metaspecie Being.
She has been interested in the discovery of deeper body artist, transformation through somatic poetry and aesthetic experience as liminal experience. Collaborating with artists from diverse disciplines has given her a broad approach to her movement practice. Developing her Butoh, dance and video work Anna has been directing group choreography with cross-discipline performances and working as somatic educator in Devon, UK.
For more on Video Works Click Here.
SELECTED PERFORMANCES/EXHIBITIONS/FESTIVALS/ CURATORIAL PROJECTS/AWARDS
2024
Ontological Mutiny, Performance by Human Clay Collective, Official Selection, Starptepla, Riga Performance Festival, Latvia
Ice Cure, Performed at Ashburton Art Center Studio, Devon, Uk
2023
Pavilion of Opacity, Performed at Daniel Sannwald Space, La Condesa, Mexico City, Mexico
Alliances Inside and Outside These Rooms, Performed at Spazio500, Palazzo Malfatti, Vigolo Vattaro, Italy
Butterfly, Performed at Go Wherever You Wish For Verily You Are Well Protected, Group Show, Dartington Hall Estate, UK
Sculptural Installation, Go Wherever You Wish For Verily You Are Well Protected, Group Show, Dartington Hall Estate, UK
Host/Curator, Go Wherever You Wish For Verily You Are Well Protected, Group Show, Dartington Hall Estate, UK
2022
Sweet Rivers, Green Mosses, Film Screening/Lecture, Reclaiming Romanticism, Sint Lucas Antwerpen, Belgium
Totipotency, Video Screening, International Forum of Performance Art, Drama, Greece
Mycelia Memories, Performed at Spazio500, Palazzo Malfatti, Vigolo Vattaro, Italy
Grimspound, Performed at the Sentient Performativities, Thinking Alongside the Human Symposium b y Art.earth, Dartington Estate, Devon, UK
Grimspound, Performed at the PERFORATIONS: Bodies and Beyond, Movement Network South West performance platform, Studio1, Devon, UK
Costumes and Performance, THE GENE, Video 360, Cameye Studios, director Ana De Matos, UK
2021
Spanda, Curator/ Artists, Series of Performances and Laboratories, at Fivizzano27, Rome, Italy
My Boundaries are Made out of Sugar and Ions, (Solo) Performed at the Municipal Art Gallery, Larnaca Art Biennale, Republic of Cyprus
Girls in Mud, Video Screening, Larnaca Art Biennale, Republic of Cyprus
Performance on Soft Beach, Performed at Hackney Marshes, London, UK
Groaning for the Absent Ant Greatness, (Solo) Performed at Tiyatro Medresesi, Izmir, Turkey
Micro Rebellion, (Solo) Performed at Tiyatro Medresesi, Izmir, Turkey
Heron’s Blues, (Solo) Performed at Tiyatro Medresesi, Izmir, Turkey
2020
Girls in Mud, Video, International Forum of Performance Art, Drama, Greece
Ice Ma, Performed at Dartington Woods, Devon, UK
Excessively Wild Mataspecies, (Solo) Performed at Soma Space, Lviv, Ukraine
Public Performance with Adam Koan, Plymouth, Devon, UK
Vocal Performance, Improvisation with Adam Koan and Roger Hall, Dartington Woods, Devon, UK
Wonderful Weekend, Video Awardwinner, Virgin Spring CINEFEST, International Film Festival, Kolkata, India
Monomaniacal About Your Own Moment of Being, Video, REALLY//REAL, Fringe Arts Bath, UK
Curator/Artist at Aller Park Studios, Dartington Estate, UK
Girls In Mud, Video, International Short Film Festival, Regensburg, Germany
2019
Autumn, Devotion, a Lively Encounter, Performance/Jam, Table Dance, Antwerp, Belgium. Performance with Romain Brau
Paradise Found, Performed at Klosterruine, Berlin. Directed and Cooked by Michelle Woods. Performance by Michelle Woods, Elise Gettliffe, Laura Walker, Anna Kushnerova. Produced by TableDance (Antwerpen) & Creamcake (Berlin)
Girls In Mud, Video, Mamu Gallery, MAVF Festival, Budapest
Girls In Mud, Video, Dual Gallery, MAVF Festival, Budapest
Girls in Mud, Video, The Grounding Story, 7th ASLEC-ANZ Biennial Conference, University of New England, Armidale, New Zealand
2018
Erotic Ecology Series, Video Screening, Table Dance, Antwerp, Belgium
2017
Real Life Fantasies, Performed at West Space, Melbourne, Australia
2014
Cannibalistic Supper, Performed at Foundation Pernod Ricard, Paris, France
The Almanac of the Old Fish, Performed at RA13 Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
Group Show (artist/curator), Time is like that – both point AND duration,
Objective Exhibitions Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
2009-2014
Curator/Director, RA13 Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
Curator/Director, RA13 Gallery, Paris, France
2013
The Glass Thrower, Performed at The Kiosk, Art Basel, Switzerland
Almond Matter, Installation, Park 5 Group Show, Park Migrating Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
Harp Play, Performed at RA13 Gallery, Paris, France
Sugar House, Group Show (artist/curator), Arnhem Mode Biennale, Arnhem, The Netherlands
2012
The Love Event 18+, Performed at RA13 Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium
Heroes, Performed at RoomsLink, Tokyo, Japan
2010
MFA End of Year Group Show, Royal Art Academy, Antwerp, Belgium
RESIDENCIES
2021 Curator, Spanda Residency, Fivizzano27, Rome, Italy2021 Artist in Residence, Palazzo Malfatti casa dell’Arte, Spazio.500, Vigolo Vattaro, Italy
2019 Intimacies with the Inhuman with Nita Little and Kerstin Kussmaul, Research Residency, ImPulsTanz, Vienna, Austria
2019 Artist in Residence, Himalayan Subbody Butoh Center with Rhizome Lee, Dharamsala, India
2018 Artist in Residence, JOYA:Air (arte + ecologia), Almeria, Spain
2015 Artist in Residence, Shigaraki Culture park, Japan
2014 Artist in Residence, Hector Mavridis Studio, Thessaloniki, Greece
2013 Apprentice, stone sculpture at Athar Jabber Studio, Antwerp, Belgium
PUBLICATIONS/ LECTURES/ JURIES/ EDUCATOR
2021 [Ongoing] Educator and Facilitator of Body Poetics, Butoh Methods, Movement in Nature, Dartington, UK2022 Reclaiming Romanticism, Lecture at the University of Sint Lucas Antwerpen, Belgium
2021 Series of Lectures and Workshops on Butoh & Improvisation Methods, Fivizzano27, Rome, Italy
2019 Contemplations on Water, Liquidscapes, Artdotearth Publication, UK
2016 Creative Processes & Dreamtime in Aboriginal Culture, Lecture, ESMODE, Tokyo, Japan
2013 Projet pour une Livre, Projet pour un Film, Art Book Publication, in collaboration with Nico Dockx & Helena Siridopoulos, Antwerp, Belgium
2013 References for the Contemporary, Scalpel Magazine, Foundation Pernod Ricard, Paris, France
2013 Jury Member, RA Award, ITS (International Talent Support) Trieste, Italy
RA Award, Fashion Department, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium
2012 Jury Member, RA Award, La Cambre, Brussels, Belgium
2012 Jury Member, Lichting Awards, Netherlands (Netherland’s seven art academies – Academy of Fine Art/Zuyd University, Willem de Kooning Academy, Utrecht School of the Arts, Royal Academy of Art, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Artez Academy of Visual Arts and AMFI Amsterdam Fashion Institute)
2012 Jury Member, RA Award, Polimoda School of Design, Florence, Italy
2011 Jury Member, Hyeres 28th International Festival of Fashion & Photography, Hyeres, France
EDUCATION
Ongoing Butoh Dance Training (past mentors: Imre Thormann, Atsushi Takenouchi, Yumiko Yoshioka, Minako Seki, Adam Koan, Ozerk Pamir, Julie Becton Gillum, Kea Toneti, Imre Thormann, Ken Mai, Tebby Romasike, Yuko Kaseki)
2020
Research Space: Psyche, a practice of new research with Hagit Yakira, Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London, UK
2019
Choreography with Materials with Florence Peake, Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London, UK
Butoh Dance Training, Himalayan Subbody Butoh Center with Rhizome Lee, Dharamsala, India
2018
MA, Holistic Science, University of Plymouth, UK
2018
Diploma, Intersection of Science and Spirituality, Schumacher College, UK
2017
Master of Ziran Qigong with Dr Lui Deming, NSW, Australia
2011
MFA, Royal Art Academy, Antwerp, Belgium
2007
Arts Folio, Central Saint Martins, London, UK
2005
BSc Finance, The London School of Economics and Political Sciences, London, UK