Janis Rafa – Feed me. Cheat me. Eat me

Films and video installations

Spoken language rarely features in her evocative films and video installations. Rafa focuses instead on the silent presence of non-humans, allowing them to become the leading force within her poetic compositions. Her narratives emphasise animalistic instincts, untamed behaviours and inabilities to coexist, alongside human fears, expectations and failure.

Animals and landscapes

Rafa’s visual language is filmic and seductive. Yet her work is disquieting: it prompts the viewer to consider pressing questions, such as how humans relate to one another and to the world around them. Her latest works – which will premiere at Eye - focus on the tension between care for and exploitation of animals and landscapes, through human inventions and desires.

Melancholic

Rafa’s new work verges on playful eroticism and physical contact, through wordplay and the re-appropriation of utilitarian objects designed to restrain animals. The exhibition title – Janis Rafa - Feed me. Cheat me. Eat me – encapsulates the underlying sense of melancholia and whimsicalness that is evident throughout her oeuvre.

Janis Rafa

Born in 1984 in Greece, Janis Rafa studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. In 2022 her film Lacerate (2020) was selected for the exhibition The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale. In 2018 the Centraal Museum in Utrecht presented her exhibition Eaten by Non-Humans and in 2023 her exhibition Riddles for Resilient Tongues took place at opbo studio in Athens. With her feature film debut Kala Azar, Rafa won the IFFR 2020 KNF Award.