Saskia Janssen
Spring 2013
From March to June 2013 Saskia Janssen was resident at The Fifth Season.
Janssen likes to work on location: ''I'm not a studio artist, I love working in different places with people who are there. Not only in the Netherlands but also in the rest of the world. I worked in China with nightclub singers, aboard a container ship I made a project with sailors in Suriname and I worked in a juvenile detention center."
In her work at The Fifth Season she was guided by the patients and their environment: "I always find it inspiring to start a project in a new environment without expectations or prejudices and create a work of art that comes from this situation,"
Central in the collaboration was experiencing ‘now’. Saskia: ‘I noticed that many patients are continuously occupied with the past or the future. I found it important to reflect on the present.’ Together with the clients she built ladders and made a large series of Hindu meditative drawings. She hung a spacious hammock between the trees to create a place between heaven and earth. A place to relax, make music and stare at the sky.
Saskia Janssen attended the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. She exhibits in The Netherlands and abroad and is represented by Ellen de Bruijne Projects gallery in Amsterdam. Her work is included in several collections including: CBK Rotterdam, Museum De Paviljoens in Almere, MMKA Arnhem, Fries Museum and private collections.
The results of the residency of Saskia Janssen were shown in the autumn of 2013 at Museum Het Dolhuys in Haarlem.
This residency at The Fifth Season and the presentation of the project at museum Het Dolhuys was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fonds.
