Series is made up of correspondence and mail-art related items received and collected by Anna Banana from the late 1960’s to the 2000s. The series reflects Banana’s involvement in the Mail Art movement (through what was then called the Mail Art Network – referring to a global network of artists who communicate through the post as an act of decentralization of artistic communication among the arts community) as well as her own personal mail. Beginning in the mid 60’s, mail art was a movement inspired by the Dadaists and futurists of the early 20th century, and made popular by notable artists such as Ray Johnson, as well as artist groups such as Image Bank and the New York Correspondence School. It remains a highly collaborative and decentralized global movement, with artists like Banana sending out, receiving, and manipulating artworks through the mail. It focuses on small form artworks, including rubber stamps, artistamps, decoration and adornment of letters and envelopes, chain mail and other creative forms.

Subject matter includes mail-art received through the Mail Art Network, personal mail to friends and family, and collected invitations to participate in mail art shows, publications and magazines, as well as catalogues of artists displayed in mail art shows, publications and magazines. Media in this series varies greatly due to the nature of the mail art movement, and the lines between textual and graphic records are blurred, so that many letters, envelopes and other classically textual mediums are often decorated with the use of paints, stamps, drawings, collage and other mixed media.

The series is arranged into 11 subseries using Banana’s existing filing system: Original mail art network, 1990s Mail art (Part 1), 1990s Mail art (Part 2), Mail art Fin de Siecle 2000, 2000s Mail art (Part 1), 2000s Mail art (Part 2), Mail art final years, Personal mail, Mail art show and publication invitations and catalogues, Unfiled mail, and Envelopes.

In the mid-1980s, Anna Banana began to seriously consider ways that she might be able to create income outside of performance art. Using skills she learned while working at printers and publishers in San Francisco and Vancouver, Banana began to create and sell artistamps, and collected multiple artistamps created by others. Artistamps are a kind of Cinderella stamp used often in mail art, which differ from forgeries or other illegal stamps in that they do not intent do defraud authorities or stamp collectors, but rather are created with the intent to be art. They make up an important aspect of the mail art genre. Banana’s activities often included the production and use of artistamps, especially after she gained access to perforation machines and colour printing in the 1980s.

This series is made up of many of her artistamp sheets, as well as various sketches, final drawings, and printer transparencies created during the process of artistamp production, as well as stamps collected from others.

As soon as Banana began her performance life as Anna Banana in 1971, she began to collect and distribute information about herself and her events. This series reflects those activities, and includes press releases and posters produced by Banana for her various shows, events and performances, as well as newspaper clippings, photocopies of news stories, magazine articles, and gallery schedules which made mention of her and her activities.

The series is arranged semi-chronologically, with certain events, such as the Banana Olympics or her 1978 Futurist Sound tour with Bill Gaglione meriting their own files.

Series is made up of published materials collected by Anna Banana. Series was collected between 1970 and 2019, from before Anna’s beginnings in the mail art network up until the donation of the fonds to UBC.

Many items were created out of mail art collaborations, while others were collected because of reference to Anna’s work, reference to the mail art network as a whole, because the creators were friends or colleagues of hers or because the items held personal interest. Banana loosely divided this series into a number of different categories, which were the basis of the subseries found here: Zines, Periodicals, Books, Exhibit Catalogs, and “Best Examples of how Mail Art Evolved.” Items which do not fit into these specific categories have been set aside into a subseries labeled “Ephemera”.

From 1971 onwards, Banana began using interactive and performance art prominently in her artistic practice. This series captures Banana’s various projects and performances. Beginning with her Town Fool activities in Victoria, Banana would often create projects which engaged audience participation. Beginning in the 1990s, she began to create large interactive projects which engaged in research-like activities, under the aegis of the Specific Research Institute. These projects often produced a large number of response forms, which can be found throughout this series, along with reports, certificates of participation, scripts for performances, working drafts and other items. Most items in this series are textual records.

Series is arranged into ten subseries: Bananology and other certificates, Specific Research Institute – But Is It Art?, Specific Research Institute – Proof Positive That Germany Is Going Bananas, Specific Research Institute – Miscellaneous, In the RED/In the BLACK, Futurist Sounds, The WORLD SERIES, A Condensed History of Performance Art, Regifting Bananas, Miscellaneous Projects and Performances.

As well as her performance art, artistamps and various publishing endeavors, Anna was also a visual artist and collector of visual art. This series is a compilation of the various artworks which were created by Anna and various colleagues. It contains xerox art, drawing and watercolours, collage, rubber stamps, as well as a number of photocopies of different artworks.

Series was collected and produced over the course of Anna’s career. It is made up of a number of binders and collections of photographs. The five binders mainly show events which Anna organized, or record her artworks, performances or costumes, such as the Banana Olympics of 1975, Columbus Day Parades in San Francisco in the 1970s, and her 1978-9 European Tour with Bill Gaglione. Other files include collected photographs from various mail art network connections and friends, although most are not labeled and so specific individuals are difficult to ascertain. Identifiable people and photographers include Genesis P. Orridge, Montana Rose, Mat Matthews, Mike Slattery, J.A.N Galligan, Irene Dogmatic and others. Photographs are mostly black and white and colour prints, black and white negatives and colour positive slides.

Series is made up of the various periodicals, books and textual items which Banana published over the course of her career. Most of these were published under the aegis of Banana Productions, a company first created while Anna was living in San Francisco. Project files contain magazines, newsletters, and artistamp editions; documents related to the creation of these publications, press and promotional materials; books and binders.

Series is arranged into seven subseries: VILE Magazine, Encyclopedia Bananica, Banana Rag, OOK (One Of a Kind) Books, Artistamp News, International Art Post, and Other publications.

In the late 1990s, Artists began using the small 2.5-inch by 3.5-inch trading card templates as the basis for a new way to share small format artworks. In the early 2000s, Anna Banana began to create and trade her own cards, amassing a fairly large collection, and producing a significant number of her own card editions. This series is made up of her own creations, as well as cards collected from artists at the trading events which she attended.

This series is mostly made up of trading cards in binders or folders, with some information relating to the development of this art form in the file called “ARTIST TRADING CARDS: The Story.” Banana compiled cards into binders either by year or by significance, and kept her own separate from those which she received from others.

This series is made up of flyers, exhibition books, reviews and documentation regarding various exhibitions which Anna Banana was involved in creating or curating, such as 20 Years of Fooling Around With A. Banana, The Popular Art of Postal Parody, 45 Years of Fooling Around With A. Banana, and the Color Show. Records were created in the course of the curation of each exhibition, and include letters of introduction, originals and drafts of flyers and exhibition booklets, posters, name tags, and reviews or press of these exhibitions. A number of these exhibitions were retrospectives of Anna’s career, while other were curated to show various elements of mail art or performance.