Ioana Păun
area: Theater, Performance
Key Facts
nationality
Romaniaarea
Theater, Performanceresidence
Bucharestrecommending institution
tranzit.org/ERSTE Foundationtime period
May 2021 - June 2021I am a contemporary theatre director working and researching internationally, having graduated from Goldsmith, University of London. My work explores the ways humans behave in ferocious political, economic and health circumstances.
Since 2012, I have been working on a visibility platform for the “love industry”, together with artists, journalists and domestic workers from Mexico, Filipines and Romania. For my cultural effort I was nominated for Cultural Inclusion Award as part of the Culture Fund Gala.
My performances and ideas got support from contemporary performance art institutions such as le phénix | scène nationale Valenciennes, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Europalia, Kunstraum Lakeside, CEC ArtsLink, Teatro Luna Chicago, National Theatre Iasi, Ashtar Theatre Palestine, Teatrul Mic, Schauspielhaus Wien, Schaubühne Theatre, Museum for the arts of the 21st century MAXXI Roma, British Council, Onassio Centre in Athens, MNAC Bucharest.
In 2017 I created the Performance Programme at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, producing the work of over many emerging performance artists, mostly from Romania but also from Sweden, Bulgaria, Morocco and Poland. In 2021 I will be conducting an extended research on Persona Studies and marginal artists in collaboration with Stanford University, Pace and Bard College in USA.
I will dedicate my residency to a mixture between artistic residency and performance. I explore behaviours related to the sentiment of guilt of those who are privileged, those who notice social injustice although, indirectly, are benefiting from it. My project starts from a personal story: when I was 15 I had the chance to watch western guilt during a school trip abroad, when me and my classmates were buried in a pile of clothes and asked to pick whatever suits us. Later on, I got to experience myself the shame of my privilege, in various contexts and power relations. I remained with an unsatisfied curiosity: is guilt a form of giving away power?
Observing process of power flipping from recent years, I will construct a dialogue with the Viennese audiences. I will offer a series of performative experiences, built around the most recent losses of power of the privileged and the contradictory emotions experienced in relation to this.
Ioana's stay is also supported by the Romanian Cultural Institute in Vienna.