Annapurna Kumar is an American animator and filmmaker based in Southern California. She is a Visiting Lecturer for the UCLA Design Media Arts Program. Annapurna’s work is about technologies; of image making and image capture, the similarities between human and computer vision, and the personal and political truths embedded in digital media. Recurring themes in her work include video game language, the environmental tolls of material and digital existence, the phenomenology of the built environment versus the natural one, fertility and mortality, and the structures of memory. Combining scenes of intense planning with irreverent and improvisational digressions, her films are short and intense; concentrated blasts of overlapping meanings, underpinned by a contemporary take on surface combining CGI, drawing, printing, and 16mm film. Annapurna creates gallery work to accompany her films including ceramic and resin sculpture, large-format prints, artist books, and tapestries.
Annapurna has designed tour visuals and music videos for Harry Styles, Carly Rae Jepsen, Beach House, Cut/Copy, Dublab, Brainfeeder, and Maral. Her work has been featured by AQNB, Pitchfork, Create Digital Motion, and Edge of Frame. Her personal work has shown in festivals including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Zagreb, London International Animation Festival, Eyeworks, Light Field, GLAS, Experimenta India, and InLight Richmond among others. Annapurna received her MFA in Experimental Animation from CalArts and is an alumni of the Film Farm residency.