Jolanda Jansen
Jolanda Jansen (NL) graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (2005) followed by post graduate studies at the Dutch Art Institute in Enschede (2007) She is founder and organizer of Performance Site P.S.- performance art events in The Hague.
In her carefully constructed but direct performances and video installations, Jolanda submits her body to various transformations, or rather deformations, to engage with the possibility of self reinvention and release from cultural determinations. Her work often stages the passage from a sexualized female body to an animal-like corporeality as a way of challenging constraining definitions of self and of femininity. She strives to dis-organize and transform her own controlled body and engage with issues of voyeurism and gender power relations.
Her approach to performance art is finding a balance between studying formal material in relation to the body in movement and its uncontrolled stages. In her latest performance series Paper Study's #, this basic material paper, gives her the opportunity to put the formal material in contrast with the intuitive body. In this way she creates poetic, out of place / surreal and sometimes disturbing images. “Paper doesn’t interest me because of what it is, but more of what it is not. Some say paper is a blank sheet, something that could become something new, or even a new beginning. You can’t erase your features, or your background. A body is harder to transform than paper, that’s why I like to use paper. It can be strong and fragile like a feather. It has the promise of meaning. I prefer to bring it back to its basic nature, to use it as a natural material, something that was alive, like coming from the wood of a majestic tree. It’s the same in how I like to go back to what it is to be human, with our cravings, shame, fear, anger etc. But we usually don’t like to reveal so much.”
In 2009, Jansen was selected to participate in the Mentoring Program for emerging artists and curators of Cultuur en Ondernemen where she worked with as mentor, the artist Ulay.
She did performance art workshops at PAS performance art studies with BBB Johannes Deimling, IPA International performance art association with VestAndPage and the Marathon workshop with Zierle & Carter and Dagmar I. Glausnitzer-Smith.
Her video and performance work has been featured internationally among others at Guggenheim, Bilbao (Spain), Defibrillator Gallery space Chicago (USA),Gasometer Oberhausen (Germany), Nan- Hai Gallery (Taipei), CREATurE Live Art Festival Kaunas (Lithuania), Residency Unlimited New York (USA), Witzenhausengallery New York (USA), Scope Basel (Switzerland), Cel 32, Berlin (Germany) Arnolfini, Bristol (UK), CREATurE Live Art Festival, Kaunas (Lithuania), NordArt Carlshütte Büdelsdorf (Germany), Warsaw International Performance Art Weekend (Poland), Solyanka Gallery Moscow (Russia), PAO Performance Art Oslo (Norway), Performance Crossings (Czech Republic), Venice Performance art week (Italy), Manggha museum Krakow (Poland), Art Center Antares Taidekeskus Sippola (Finland), Morni Hills Performance Art Biennale-II, Government Museum, Chandigarh (India), Performancear O MORIR (Mexico), Jang An Gallery Suncheon (Korea), BACC Bangkok (Thailand) and Kuryokhin Center for Contemporary Art Saint Petersbur (Russia).
