Iva Jankovic & Antonio Jose Guzman (Messengers of the Sun) in front of their work, Orbital Mechanics at the Venice Biennale (2024). Photo: Arianna Carotta, courtesy of Messengers of the Sun Iva Jankovic
Iva Jankovic is a Dutch-Yugoslav visual artist. Located in Amsterdam, she creates in Nederland, Gujarat and Serbia. Invited Artist: 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Curated by Adriano Pedrosa.
Merging her traditional fine arts education with crafts she’s transforming ideas into performance pieces, installations and unique garments. Her fascination for communal memories is furthering a theory of homogeneity in human thinking. By deconstructing cross-cultural symbols and bringing them to a local environment she’s asserting sustainability as a way towards decolonisation. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, Textile Museum, Tilburg; Kroller Muller Museum; Watersnoodmuseum Nederland; Humanity House Museum, Den Haag; Museum; OSCAM – Open Space Contemporary Art Museum, Amsterdam and at multiple events in Zurich, Basel, Berlin, Guatemala City, New York, Hamburg, Havana, Sofia, Skopje, and Belgrade.
Her other creative work includes a collaboration with the Stichting de Vrolijkheid, a network of professional artists and cultural organisations that develop art projects in Dutch asylum seekers centres. Currently working with visual artist Antonio Jose Guzman in the ongoing project Electric Dub Station. Together, they reinterpret the transatlantic connections of indigo textiles, which are deeply embedded with the history of western colonialism. Collaborating at the edge of visual art and performance since 2016, Amsterdam-based artists and decolonial fibre researchers, Iva Jankovic and Antonio Jose Guzman focus on the role of textile threads and their colonial past. Their works engage with Black Atlantic Metaphors and Afrofuturistic Mythologies. The duo participated in presentations at the 60th Venice Biennial, Stedelijk Museum, MAC Panama, MASP Sao Paulo, HKW Berlin, Art Basel, 18th Streets California, Barbican London, Liverpool Biennial.
Jankovic and Guzman are the founders of Messengers of the Sun, a performance art initiative with recent presentations at the 60th Venice Biennial.
At Framer Framed, Iva Jankovic has participated in Dub Indigo Resistances: Sonic and Textile Testimonies, Le Thinnai Kreyol – Atelier KITLV: Kreyol Warung, the opening of Elsewheres Within Here (2019) and Shapeshifters: On Wounds, Wonders and Transformations (2025).
Exhibitions
