Lena Simic, performance practitioner, born in Dubrovnik, Croatia, living in Liverpool, UK. Interested in generating an interventionist feminist arts practice which is informed by its relation to everyday lived experience. Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at Liverpool Hope University.
Co-organizer of The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home, an art activist initiative run from a spare bedroom of her council house together with Gary Anderson and three children Neal, Gabriel and Sid. The Institute has hosted a number of artist residencies and performance events since 2007, including Miss Julie in Utopia (2008), Macbethmachine (2010), Reverend Billy & family (2011), Townley & Bradby (2011), and ongoing Liverpool based Politics and Aesthetics Reading Group meetings.
www.twoaddthree.org
Lena’s solo and collaborative performances and art projects include 790 Recreations (with Julieann O’Malley, short video film 2012), Betting on Being British (with Jennifer Verson, Lantern Theatre 2011), Blood & Soil: we were always meant to meet… (with Jennifer Verson, WECC 2011), mother & son: ‘that just sounds really sad’ (with Neal Anderson, 25 SG 2011), Masha Serghyeevna (the Bluecoat 2009), Sid Jonah Anderson by Lena Simic (MAP Live, Carlisle, 2008), Joan Trial (Nuffield Theatre, Lancaster, 2005) and Medea/Mothers’ Clothes (Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool, 2004).
Lena is a founder member of Factory Floor, creative network for women performers and writers. She is also involved in MaMSIE (Mapping Maternal Subjectivities Identities Ethics) interdisciplinary research network, Migrant Artists Mutual Aid network and Performance and the Body Working Group at TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association).
Recent artist publications include Maternal Matters and Other Sisters Artist Catalogue (2009) and Blood & Soil: we were always meant to meet… performance document, with Jennifer Verson (2011).
CURRENT ACTIVITIES and NEWS
Engaged in writing Love & War: we were never meant to meet…
Engaged in editing some experimental writing through Conspiracy in the Hour of the Wolf course.
Performing in The Vagina Monologues for V Day 2012 organized by Migrant Artists Mutual Aid on 18th March at the Lantern Theatre and 24th March at Ullet Road Unitarian Church, L17. For tickets and more info visit V Day website.
BLOOD & SOIL: we were always meant to meet… a performance event with Jennifer Verson is available for touring. Next performance will take place on 29th June 2012 at Liverpool Hope. For more information check it out underneath Performance Collaborations.
Contact lenasimic@hotmail.com
