Anna Banana (Canadian, 1940-2024) was a conceptual performance and mail artist. Born in Victoria as Anne Lee Long, the artist adopted the name Anna Banana in 1971 when she began corresponding with the International Mail Art Network (including Image Bank’s artist lists). Between 1973 and 1981, Banana lived in San Francisco where she collaborated with Bill Gaglione of Dadaland and the Bay Area Dadaists, and began publishing VILE magazine, a counterpart to General Idea’s FILE Megazine, itself a parody of LIFE magazine. Banana’s performance works include Futurist Sound, Proof Positive Germany is Going Bananas, Banan Communion, But, is it Art? and the interactive public performance, the Banana Olympics. In 2021, Anna Banana donated her artwork and paper archive to the Belkin and UBC Rare Books and Special Collections respectively; the Belkin’s holdings include exchanges with artists in the International Mail Art Network, issues of VILE magazine, costumes from the artist’s performances and a selection of her Artistamp editions, among other items.