BIO
Lisette Ros (Hilversum, NL, 1991) is a conceptual and performance artist, officially since 2013.
In 2016 Lisette Ros performed at the Venice Architecture Biennal in Italy, followed by the international launch of My Self, the Body at SXSW in Austin, USA (2018), and a collaboration with Asian Dope Boys for TRANCE at MWoods Museum in Beijing, China (2019). In 2021 she finished her residency at Marina Abramoviç and she launched her work My Self, the (First) Breath at SIM in Iceland. Since August 2023, she’s immersed in the sixth part of her ‘My Self’ series, partly in Indonesia, exploring her unfamiliar roots, with the guidance of performance artist Melati Suryodarmo. For My Self, the (Unfamiliar) Roots Lisette got granted by the Mondrian Fund, Erasmus Huis Jakarta by the Dutch Embassy, and the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund.
In June 2023 Ros unveiled her “Presence in Absence” piece, the first installment of her performative research series titled The Absence of Metamorphosis, delving into the concept of metamorphosis in relation to the axolotl at Casa Lü in Mexico City.
Her diverse body of work has been exhibited at prominent institutions globally, including Amsterdam Museum, Apiary London, Arti et Amicitiae, Barbara Thumm Galerie, Casa Lü Galería, The Curators Room – La Oficina Barcelona, De Waag Society, EYE Film Museum, Frans Halsmuseum, Het HEM, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Goethe Institute, Looiersgracht 60, MOYA Museum Oosterhout, Museumnacht Rotterdam, MWoods Museum Beijing, SBK-Dordrecht, South By South West, Studio Plesungan, Oped Space Tokyo, Piramidón Centre d’Art Contemporani, Van Abbemuseum, Van Gogh Museum, and guerrilla at (various) places.
Beyond her art, Ros is a performative lecturer, conducting creative workshops and programs for both youth and adults. Her teaching revolves around themes such as identity fluidity, diversity, gender performativity, challenging stereotypes, prejudices, and everyday systems. Emphasizing introspection and embracing vulnerabilities, her approach fosters creative expression with threads of inspiration, recognition, humor, and diverse perspectives. Prior to her current roles, Lisette Ros gained extensive experience shaping and teaching classes on tolerance, discrimination, identity, diversity, and LGBTQI+ issues.
Read: interview ‘Meet Lisette Ros’ at Raandoom. Published 23rd of March 2024.
ABOUT
The research of artist Lisette Ros is complementary: towards society, unmasking how collective mechanisms work; conditioned by an understructure rooted in our basic, daily behavior, and towards herself.
While her performances always carry recognizable elements, she analyses routines and questions conventions, daily rhythms and their self-evidence. She sees the consequences of socio cultural praxis that affect us, whilst the peculiar element to her work is that this all cannot exist apart from her persona. Her body is therefor the pivotal space of action, the battlefield where these types of questions are asked; her ground for exploration.
Ros’ performances are marked by reiterations of the same gestures and acts, increasing the feelings of discomfort in the spectator. However, instead of using herself simply as a vessel, an instrument such as a canvas can be, Ros’ body is symbol and flesh at the same time. Standing naked as an iconographic emblem of general humanity, hers are the muscles, hers are the lungs, hers are the tired legs after writhing in the spasm of moving. It is her body that shapes the physical joint between herself and the world, and it is exactly there that the artists’ process of research manifests itself, as a quest towards collective mechanisms, and as a quest towards her own, fluid identity. Who is she, in the midst of it all? Currently identifying as humanimal, woman, queer, fluid and gay. But mostly, a hybrid form of existence, morphing between the fragmented categories of existing species.
This is the profound reason why Ros’ aching need of understanding has to pass through her body. Feelings are confronting, but at the same time introduce her with vulnerabilities, her flesh, her blood. She is bleeding, she is breathing, she is wondering.
© Sara van Bussel
© Photo by Edland Man
© Lisette Ros