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Venus Jasper is a Queer visual artist, storyteller, world builder, singer-priestess, writer, and curator, based between Amsterdam and Antwerp.

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Bio

Venus Jasper (Griepink) is a queer visual artist, storyteller, world builder, singer-priestess, public speaker, researcher, educator, writer and curator - currently based between Amsterdam and Antwerp. In their multi-disciplinary counter-cultural and ritualistic work they envision spirited and sensuous post-capitalisms that spell the decolonization of the anthropocene, rekindle more-than-human kinship, and forward queer perspectives on ecology, community, spirituality and the self.

As part of their artistic practice, they create ultra-sensory spatial installations in which grounded tactility meets playful futurism. From sculptural mudscapes teeming with life to participatory performances, from audiovisual pieces, and experimental electronic soundscapes to vernacular sculptures, from participatory performances to drawings — each creation invites audiences into a realm of exploration and introspection. Highlights are their large solo exhibition EARTHSHRINE at MU Eindhoven (2022) and the performance OAKBaLLZ and EELSKin at Rupert Lithuania (2023).

In recent years, their artistic work has increasingly involved music production and the development of songs, spoken word, spells, and invocations - alongside of their deepening sculptural practice exploring their relation to sacred swamps, ancestry and trauma.

Be it through art making, writing, or education, Jasper's activities root in queer ecology, environmentalism, land-based ways of knowing, rejected wisdom, science fiction, the more-than-human, sex, gender, and search of identity — the interplay between these fields spawns the work of this maker.

Venus Jasper at Green Space Miami.


Credentials


Venus Jasper holds an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) from the Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam (2013) and is trained in Permaculture Design, Reiki, Somatic Psychotherapy, Speculative Writing, and Music Production. Their work was presented at MU Hybrid Art House Eindhoven (NL), LungA Festival (IS), Rupert (LT), AIRIE Florida (US), TENT Rotterdam (NL), Garage Rotterdam (NL), Zone2Source (NL), 1646 (NL), Tidens Krav (NO), Museum IJsselstein (NL), Lustwarande Tilburg (NL), IMPAKT Festival (NL), Odapark (NL), Melkweg Expo (NL), Onomatopee Eindhoven (NL), and MuHKA Antwerpen (BE), amongst other.

Besides their artistic work, they are a freelance curator for RE_NATURE (2021-2022) and are/were a course tutor at BEAR ArtEZ Arnhem (2023), Ecology Futures MA MICV/St. Joost Den Bosch (2021-22), Scenography AHK Amsterdam (2024-25), and mentor at RE: Opera, Sandberg Institute (2024).

More information?


Connect for general inquiries, bookings, sales, studio visits, collaborations. Also check out my other work below.

A full CV is available
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Recent media coverage and interviews

AIRIE Asks.

As part of my month-long AiR at AIRIE Everglades (USA), I was interviewed by Miami-based artist and queer ecologist Lee Pivnik, the founder of the Institute of Queer Ecology. In the talk, hosted at Greenspace Miami, I share about my recent art practice and my time in the Everglades.

Watch here (English, 75 min)

Toegezongen Aarde.

Visiting Song Sing Soil in the Vleeshal, with Jasper Griepink. A dialogue between Dagmar Bosma and Jasper about soil, zombie fungus dangers, and being symbionts, while visiting the exhibition Song Sing Soil by Eglė Budvytytė en Marija Olšauskaitė.

Read the dialogue (Dutch)

Have we met? Interview podcast with MU Eindhoven.

Featured in a new podcast series by MU Eindhoven about EARTHSHRINE, worldbuilding, the sacred, eco-feminism and queer nature. Great interview by Lieke Mangindaan. Hope you enjoy! (Dutch language).

Listen here (Dutch, 41 mins)

To Live and Die With Soil.

Essay by Georgia Kareola, contextualizing the exhibition EARTHSHRINE - a show offering an eco-fictional sacred space with multi-media artworks and public gatherings inviting us to redefine our relationship with soil. The essay unpacks the current soil crisis, and works with critical theory on soil ecologies and new materialist thought to help understand sensing as a way of relating, and soil as a complex living, multi-species assemblage.

Read the essay (15 min)

Grove is in the Heart.

An exploration of Human and Non-Human Agency in Post-Anthropocentric Rituals

For the 40th anniversary edition of the art magazine Kunstlicht: SPELLBOUND, Georgia Kareola wrote an essay to reflect on my work Enter the Grove and S T O N E O R G Y x DEEPSOIL as performed in various cultural spaces in the Netherlands between 2019 and 2021. The essay focusses on rituals, magical practices and materialist practices within contemporary art and visual culture.

Read it here (15 min)

Kunst is Lang.

I was interviewed about my recent projects for the podcast Kunst is Lang, by Mister Motley magazine and Luuk Heezen. The interview can be found on nearly all podcast platforms, but also on this link. Click below for the video of the interview.

Watch video (50 min)

Orgasme als wondermiddel.

Writer Puck Kroon published a review at Mister Motley about the show Orgonomics, curated by Pádraic E. Moore for Garage Rotterdam. The exhibition centers on the work of Wilhelm Reich and his research of "orgone energy", a sexual bio-energy famously sung about by Kate Bush in the song Cloud Busting.

Read here! (Dutch)

Wanneer taal poëzie wordt, komen we dichter bij de werkelijkheid.

Deep and long interview about my work in 2020 with Lieneke Hulshof for Mister Motley. We talk about language, indigenous knowledge, paganism, speculative fiction, and my recent performances.

English translation can be found here. Enjoy!

Read interview here (Dutch)

Delirious Lustwarande, a book on Contemporary Sculpture.

Delirious Lustwarande - Excursions in Contemporary Sculpture III is a book on contemporary sculpture published by Lustwarande Tilburg. The book collects several years of art shown at Lustwarande, including my work Grove 2.0 - Chapel of Wild Wisdom. The book also includes essays by Dominic van den Boogerd, Johan Pas and Domeniek Ruijters.

Order the book here!

Kunstenaar als Sjamaan.

Art historian Nadeche Remst wrote a review for Metropolis M about the performance event Echoes of Shamanism, which took place at Zone2Source, Amsterdam. She discusses the works of each artist, also featuring some photographs.

Read it here (Dutch)

Ultra Ecosexual Polyamory

As part of the book We Are The Market! by Onomatopee, Josh Plough wrote a review of my performance Ultra Ecosexual Polyamory. Permaculture ASAP. The book features 18 unannounced commissioned taking place in the shopping center of Eindhoven.

Read review here.

Natuur en cultuur.

Anne Lotte Dekker wrote a review for Tubelight about the show Disruption - Remapping Nature at Lustwarande Tilburg, for which I had made the work Grove 2.0 - Chapel of Wild Wisdom.

Check it out (Dutch)

Niet menselijke Krachten op de Lustwarande

The Dutch newspaper NRC, published a review and photography feature of Disruption - Remapping Nature, the exhibiton at Lustwarande Tilburg, for which I had made the work Grove 2.0 - Chapel of Wild Wisdom.  

Read it here (Dutch)

Lustwarande en de connectie Tilburg – Kasselv

Domeniek Ruyters, chief editor of Metropolis M, reviews the show Disruption - Remapping Nature at Lustwarande Tilburg, for which I had made the work Grove 2.0 - Chapel of Wild Wisdom.

Online here (Dutch)

Futuristic Primitivism.

Curator Rieke Vos interviewed me about my past 29 years on Earth for O, Wonder! Magazine, a new platform and magazine for dialogue and inspiration around Green Culture, Climate Change, New Economies, and the notion of the Anthropocene. I also contributed an essay on Permaculture and alternative community for the same publication. Read all about it!

Read PDF here (Dutch)

Jan Rijdt Rond.

I was interviewed and followed for a day for the Dutch TV-program Jan Rijdt Rond, aired on NPO. Check the link below for an amusing experience of body, bondage, love and sexuality. The video has English subtitles. Enjoy!

See the video here (6 min)

Nieuwe Nieuwe Alchemie.

Curator and art critic Maaike Lauwaert reports on a possible trend of alchemy and rituals in the arts, for Metropolis M. Also featuring several of my works, such as Laya Papaya Public bath, performed at TENT Rotterdam.

Open the PDF here

Limning Time.

The effervescent Canadian author Lisa Robertson wrote a very beautiful and poetic essay about my graduation work for the Piet Zwart Institute, shown at TENT Rotterdam as part of the show Nothing could be slow enough, nothing last too long, curated by Arnisa Zeqo.

See PDF here (English)