Anna Papathanasiou

Anna Papathanasiou is a Greek-Canadian interdisciplinary artist. 

She studied classical piano and musical theory at the Athenaeum–“Maria Callas” Conservatory. She has graduated from the Department of Physical Education and Sport Science at Democritus University of Thrace (DUTh) and holds a BA and an MFA at the Αthens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) in visual arts and performance. 
She worked as an artistic collaborator at the theater production ELENIT by Euripides 
Laskaridis, presented at the Οnassis Stegi, and as art director and artistic collaborator for the film ‘Lacerate’ by Janis Rafa, commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film and presented at the 59th International Art Exhibition curated by Cecilia Alemani. Anna is a founding member and leading singer in the grunge band Puta Volcano. She is also a founding and active 
member of the F.T.I.J.s group and the Das Ist Genau collective.

With roots in the 
fine arts and music, she has created a unique language through video, performance, installation, and sculpture works. She presented her live piece ‘EAT’ in Νew York, as a resident artist at the Watermill 
Center under the direction of Bob Wilson, performed the piece ‘Empathetic Body’ at 
Venice Architecture Biennale, the #SKG Bridges Festival, and the Kaunas 
Biennial, and completed a residency in LA SERRE–arts vivants at the École Nationale de Théâtre du Canada in Montreal. She co-created and performed the three-hour-long site-specific performance ‘Outland’, presented at “Rooms,” held by Kappatos gallery in Αthens. She has performed at the “Some Sort of Now” project, in France, Spain, and Andorra
, showcasing the brutalist architecture of Ricardo Bofill. Her video performance ‘Christmas Tree’ was exhibited at the “Art Props | Kunst-Interventionen” exhibition in 
Mannheim, Germany, and the “Some Sort of Now” group exhibition in Berlin.

She has also presented her works in the form of video,
 performance, or public interventions at the digital biennale “Electric Nights” in Tokyo, Japan; and at “Infantry Square” of the Athens Biennale 2015-2017: “OΜΟΝΟΙΑ” in Greece. She participated in the 
Salon du dessin Érotique de Paris, France and exhibited at the virtual exhibition Praxis at NYU Steinhardt in Νew York, USA. Her latest work ‘Axel’s Just Dreaming’, commissioned by Οnassis Stegi, premiered at the Onassis New Choreographers Festival 8 in 2021 and traveled in September 2021 to the Istanbul Fringe Festival. She performative piece ‘She Was a Good Girl’, that she presented as a resident artist at CN D in Paris, premiered at the Open House Festival of Dance House Lemesos.In 2021, she was awarded the SNF Artist Fellowship Program by ARTWORKS. As a visual artist she participated in the “Gender Melancholia” group show and the “Bodies in Motion” exhibition in Αthens, Greece, and more recently, in 2022, in the exhibition “Ammophila vol. 3: There Was Land Here Before”, supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sports and NEON. She was a resident artist at the Head2Head program held by A-Dash, Athens, in collaboration with the Icelandic artistic exchange program. She was also a resident artist at Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf in Germany, where she conducted research and co-produced a new piece, titled ‘Bethy Trio’, supported by Glass House Berlin, a devised work that brings together fragments of texts by Bettina von Arnim, Kathy Acker, Dodie Bellamy, and Sarah Schulman, among others. Staged towards the possibility of trans-historicity, the words deal with science and poetry, the individuality of gender, and expressions of overcoming Christian ideals of love, with a movement between historic periods. The piece was presented at Glass House Berlin in June 2022.

In 2022, she also completed a forty-day European tour as the leading musician of Puta Volcano.