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Janis Rafa - Landscape Depressions, 2023 - Spazio Ferdinand Stuflesser, Pontives

Janis Rafa, Landscape Depressions, 2023.Videostill. Courtesy of the Artist

Janis Rafa shifts between visual arts and cinematography, producing film works that tell stories of a non-anthropocentric universe, often set in liminal and abandoned landscapes on the margins of the urban fabric and human society. Her narratives bring together human and nonhuman beings, such as animals and plants, the living and the non-living, and hinge on mortality, coexistence and empathy among creatures. The feature film Kala azar (2020) chronicles the lives of a young couple who work in an animal crematorium, and is named after a disease that decimated the European dog population in the 1990s. In the almost dialogue-free film, the two travel through the countryside around a Greek town in search of roadside animal carcasses to collect and cremate.

Landscape Depressions (2023), on view at Pontives, is set in an artificial lake in northern Greece. The seemingly natural landscape is actually the result of a deeply impactful human intervention: the construction of a dam. The title is a pun based on the geological term for an area that lies lower than its surroundings, forming a type of natural lake. In the video, humans sleep a deep, unperturbed sleep that makes them passive, while animals take over the spaces and landscape. The voiceover accompanying the images describes the construction and materiality of the dam, written by architect and writer Aristide Antonas. (M.P.)

JANIS RAFA

Janis Rafa (1984, Athens, Greece) is based between Amsterdam and Athens. Rafa creates disquieting, fable-like films, video installations and cinematic narratives that question humans' relationship with non-human beings and the history of landscapes. She was a resident at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, and currently at Onassis Air, Athens. Solo exhibitions include EMST | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (upcoming); Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; Centraal Museum, Utrecht. She also took part in the 59th Biennale di Venezia; Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; MAXXI, Rome; State of Concept Athens; Manifesta 12; Centre d’art Contemporain Chanot; Mardin Biennial; and Kunsthalle Munster. Rafa’s work is part of several institutional and private collections including Stedelijk Museum, Centraal Museum, Museum Voorlinden and Fondazione In Between Art Film. Her debut feature film Kala azar (2020) world premiered at the IFFR (KNF award), and at New Directors/New Films at MoMA.

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Janis Rafa - Landscape Depressions, 2023 - Spazio Ferdinand Stuflesser, Pontives

Janis Rafa, Landscape Depressions, 2023.Videostill. Courtesy of the Artist

Janis Rafa shifts between visual arts and cinematography, producing film works that tell stories of a non-anthropocentric universe, often set in liminal and abandoned landscapes on the margins of the urban fabric and human society. Her narratives bring together human and nonhuman beings, such as animals and plants, the living and the non-living, and hinge on mortality, coexistence and empathy among creatures. The feature film Kala azar (2020) chronicles the lives of a young couple who work in an animal crematorium, and is named after a disease that decimated the European dog population in the 1990s. In the almost dialogue-free film, the two travel through the countryside around a Greek town in search of roadside animal carcasses to collect and cremate.

Landscape Depressions (2023), on view at Pontives, is set in an artificial lake in northern Greece. The seemingly natural landscape is actually the result of a deeply impactful human intervention: the construction of a dam. The title is a pun based on the geological term for an area that lies lower than its surroundings, forming a type of natural lake. In the video, humans sleep a deep, unperturbed sleep that makes them passive, while animals take over the spaces and landscape. The voiceover accompanying the images describes the construction and materiality of the dam, written by architect and writer Aristide Antonas. (M.P.)

JANIS RAFA

Janis Rafa (1984, Athens, Greece) is based between Amsterdam and Athens. Rafa creates disquieting, fable-like films, video installations and cinematic narratives that question humans' relationship with non-human beings and the history of landscapes. She was a resident at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, and currently at Onassis Air, Athens. Solo exhibitions include EMST | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens (upcoming); Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam; Centraal Museum, Utrecht. She also took part in the 59th Biennale di Venezia; Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; MAXXI, Rome; State of Concept Athens; Manifesta 12; Centre d’art Contemporain Chanot; Mardin Biennial; and Kunsthalle Munster. Rafa’s work is part of several institutional and private collections including Stedelijk Museum, Centraal Museum, Museum Voorlinden and Fondazione In Between Art Film. Her debut feature film Kala azar (2020) world premiered at the IFFR (KNF award), and at New Directors/New Films at MoMA.