Ioana Paun

Bio

I am a theatre director and performance artist working and researching internationally. My work explores the ways humans behave in ferocious political, economic, and health circumstances. I am particularly drawn to stories about outliers, destabilization, paradox, and moral dilemmas.

My performances and ideas have been supported by contemporary performance art institutions such as Le Phénix | Scène Nationale Valenciennes, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Europalia, MuseumsQuartier Vienna, Kunstraum Lakeside, CEC ArtsLink, Ashtar Theatre Palestine, Schauspielhaus Wien, Schaubühne Theatre, Museo MAXXI Roma, British Council, MNAC Bucharest, and the Fulbright Program.

My efforts to help build the local performance scene culminated in 2017 when I created the Performance Programme at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, producing the work of over 30 emerging performance artists.

In 2021, I made my cinema debut with Emilia Hosu Has HIV. The film was awarded the Critics' Jury Award at FEKK Slovenia and Best Local Short at TIFF.

After the pandemic, I have been moving inward, studying artistic ethos. I collaborated with Stanford, Bard, and Pace Universities in the U.S. to interrogate how Instagram can be undermined by subversive artistic attitudes. In 2025, I am completing a short film set in one of Bucharest's most luxurious and decadent hair salons of the '80s and continuing to create works centered on various philosophical endeavors.

Research project

This research aims to explore the phenomenon of plane hijackings in communist regimes, starting with the 1971 Romanian plane hijacking as a pivotal case study. By analyzing this case alongside other hijackings across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the project will investigate why hijacking became an avenue for freedom under oppressive regimes. It will assess the cultural conditions that made such high-risk actions conceivable, the planning and execution involved, and their implications for the state, hijackers, passengers, and the public discourse surrounding them. The study will connect these historical incidents with contemporary discussions about resistance, state control, and human rights, offering a genealogical perspective on the language of freedom.

Gathering archival data, including text, video, images, and recorded dialogues, is the foundation for developing a theatrical production at the National Theatre in Bucharest.

This creative endeavor seeks to engage audiences in a deeper reflection on the moral ambiguities and human resilience underpinning such acts of defiance, making the past resonate with contemporary struggles for freedom and agency.