In an overgrown field, the head of a white horse pops up from behind lush, overgrown greenery. In the background there is the facade of wooden houses that have seen better days.

Janis Rafa, Landscape Depressions, 2023. Film still, single-channel video with sound, 25 min. Courtesy the artist © Janis Rafa

Exhibition, films, talks & events

Janis Rafa

Feed me. Cheat me. Eat me.

14 October 2023 — 7 January 2024

Janis Rafa, Lacerate, 2020. Film still, single-channel video with sound, 16 min. Courtesy the artist; Fondazione In Between Art Film © Janis Rafa

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 premieres at Eye - focus on the tension between care for and exploitation of animals and landscapes, through human inventions and desires.

Eye Filmmuseum presents a solo exhibition by artist and filmmaker Janis Rafa. Spoken language rarely features in her evocative films and video installations; she 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.

Janis Rafa, Landscape Depressions, 2023. Film still, single-channel video with sound, 25 min. Courtesy the artist © Janis Rafa

Exhibition opening

The programme kicks off on 14 October at 20:30 with a music performance accompanied by captivating visuals. The night will then unfold with an electrifying set by DJ Mayo.

Janis Rafa, Landscape Depressions, 2023. Film still, single-channel video with sound, 25 min. Courtesy the artist © Janis Rafa

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.

Rafa’s subjects are positioned within unusual cinematographic compositions that blend the fictional with the mundane. In these timeless spaces, she highlights structures of power, domination and control. The locations she chooses lie on the urban fringes, post-industrial sites, abandoned buildings and decaying agricultural landscapes. Among the ruins of these worlds, she explores themes such as affection for the non-human body, interspecies relations and dealing with loss. Her work forms a wordless ode to stray and domesticated dogs, roadkill, hunted prey, animals in factory farming and other victims of late-capitalist society.

Janis Rafa, Three Farewells: Father Gravedigger, 2013. Film still, single-channel video with sound, 20 min. Courtesy the artist; Stedelijk Museum © Janis Rafa

poster Janis Rafa – Feed me. Cheat me. Eat me.

Films, talks & events

Film programme accompanied by specials in which artist and filmmaker Janis Rafa talks to guests about the question: how can artists relate to the landscape, the climate and relationships between humans and animals? Rafa has also selected eight films on the wildness of nature that have special significance for her.

In addition, Eye is screening Rafa’s own films, which hardly ever use dialogue. Instead, she focuses on the silent presence of domesticated or wild animals – dogs, horses, birds – and makes these the driving force in her poetic compositions. Janis Rafa’s stories deal not only with human fears, expectations and failures – they also zoom in on animal instincts, untamed behaviour and the human incapacity to live together.

still from Kala azar (Janis Rafa, NL/GR 2020)

Eye Film Player

Kala azar follows a young couple who try to give meaning to their lives by caring for dead animals. In her feature film debut, Rafa creates a surrealist universe of her own, with subtle comments on the ecological disaster awaiting us.

Watch it for free on the Eye Film Player

Free guided tour

Every Sunday at 14:00 and 15:00, a guide takes you on a tour (in Dutch) through the exhibition upon presentation of a valid exhibition ticket.

Every third Sunday of the month, a Dutch Sign Language interpreter will give a guided tour. You can sign up by contacting rondleiding@eyefilm.nl.

There's a special tour for students of secondary school and higher education.

About Janis Rafa

Born in 1984 in Greece, Janis Rafa studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and was awarded a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Leeds. In 2022 her film Lacerate (2020) was selected for The Milk of Dreams an exhibition curated by Cecilia Alemani 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.

Work by Rafa was featured in Manifesta 12 and shown at Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Kunsthalle Munster and MAXXI, amongst other museums and galleries. Her works are held in the collections of Eye Filmmuseum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Centraal Museum, Museum Voorlinden, Fondazione In Between Art Film and Dommering Foundation.

Rafa and Eye have previously collaborated on a number of occasions: in 2015 her work featured in the exhibition Close-Up – A New Generation of Film and Video Artists in the Netherlands. In 2020 her short film Waiting for the Time to Pass was included in Eye’s online exhibition of the same name. And in 2020 Rafa’s debut feature film Kala azar was screened in Eye’s cinema’s after winning the KNF Award at IFFR and being selected for New Directors/New Films at MoMA.

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive programme of public talks and film screenings, and by a specially compiled educational programme.