Janis Rafa
Janis Rafa is a filmmaker and visual artist living in Athens and Amsterdam. The main characters in her films, installations and objects are animals. The artist explores their relationships with humans and their habitat, often examining farewell rituals and role reversals. Creating intense and disturbing images, she takes a critical view of non-consensual human behaviour, control mechanisms for deceiving the animal body and various forms of violence against non-humans.
The dog, who is the protagonist of the film Waiting for the Time to Pass (2021), becomes one of the most important characters in this part of the exhibition, dedicated to the theme of liberation. The animal, locked in a car, pants nervously and whines. In this fictional space that Rafa proposes, the animal is entirely at the mercy of humans. However, help does not come. The film is a commentary on the ecological disaster caused by the Anthropocene and also relates to other forms of violence that humans commit on domesticated animals (and other beings).
Exhibited work:
Waiting for the Time to Pass, 2021
Courtesy Janis Rafa