Jana Astanov is a multidisciplinary artist, living in New York. Born in Poland she studied anthropology, philosophy and linguistics in France, and arts in the UK. Her work includes photography, poetry, performance, new media and installation. She performed since 2003 influenced by the 59Rue de Rivoli community in Paris. She describes her performance art practice as “mythology vs ideology” referring to her two main interests the political & economic foundations of our civilisation and mythological/ religious values. In her work she utilizes elements of hypnosis, occult, spirituality, dance movement derived from the Grotowski technique, sound art, ritualistic theatre. Her poetry was first published in Polish when she was 16. Since her 20s she experimented with writing in English, with first poetry in her third language (after Polish and French) published at 3AM Magazine in 2015. Jana merges poetry with performance practice and sound art. She has started two feminist performance groups Red Temple (also a publishing house) and W.I.S.E. encouraging other women to create and write their own stories that she often includes in her performances with an aim to portray the female world. She published three collections of poetry: Antidivine (Undergroundbooks.org), Grimoire (Red Temple Press) and Sublunar (Red Temple Press).
