Jatun Risba

Jatun Risba (they, them) is a migrant transmedia performance artist from Slovenia. While completing a BA in fashion design, they studied New Media Arts with Francesco Monico, Antonio Caronia and Pier Luigi Capucci at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) in Milan and worked as an intermedia artist and writer under the pseudonym OtherehtO (2008-09). In addition to that, they studied Philosophy of Language at Roma 3 with Paolo Virno and hold a PG Cert in Art & Science from Central Saint Martins – University of the Arts London (2020).

Risba’s work is informed by their lived experience of radical self-healing from Multiple Sclerosis (2012-2019) through unleashed dancing in public spaces (“dances of urgency”), guerrilla artistic interventions and a practice of different bliss-inducing techniques. Their art specifically draws on ecofeminist art, performance art, conceptual art, relational art and the artistic practices of abjection, détournement, art intervention and happening. They have exhibited and performed widely, at the Prague Biennale 2023, at the Meta.morf 2022 Trondheim Biennale in Norway, at the Cloud 9 pavilion at the Bangkok Biennial 2020-21, at Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, at Kersnikova Institute and Cirkulacija2 in Ljubljana, at Pixxelpoint festival in 2008 & 2019 … and gave lectures and workshops internationally: at the University of the Underground, at the Goethe University Frankfurt, at the Moving Image Research Lab in Montreal, at the Strasbourg University and at the Taboo, Transgression and Transcendence in Art and Science conference in Wien (2020) and Malta (2023). They received the a-n Artist Bursary in 2019, a fellowship from the ERSTE Foundation in 2020 and was one of the selected artist for the Social Art Award 2021.

My art research is inspired by the world’s wisdom traditions, such as Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhism and Slovene pre-Christian religion, and explores unconventional uses of contemporary technologies, such as mobile phones, WiFi internet, sensors and microcomputers.The artworks and project I develop or facilitate are informed by my lived experience of radical self-healing from Multiple Sclerosis (2012-2019) through unleashed dancing in public spaces (“dances of urgency”), guerrilla artistic interventions and a practice of different bliss-inducing techniques. These practices included clubbing, (self-)hypnosis and erotic expression. Collaboration with human, non-human and more-than-human entities is central to my art. It allows the artist to challenge and transcend personal echo-chambers for the sake of creating works that expand the view and add flash, weight and layers of complexity to the atomized experiences of the real. Art becomes a tool to spark creative strategies and mind-opening conversations about ethics and ecosocial justice that impact the way of inhabiting our inner, outer and sacred territories. Another important characteristic of my practice is the cultivation of reciprocity and kinship with all forms of life. This is done by altering & awakening human sensory awareness, through physical and mental training and/or use of technology, based on the realization of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all phenomena.