Saskia Janssen (1968, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands) mixes a variety of media in her socially engaged site-specific works, often to make visible or materialize situations that are invisible at first. She has collaborated with a.o. sailors, nightclub singers, hard drug users, Buddhists, psychiatric hospital patients and inmates. The outcomes of these collaborations have taken the form of installations, recorded albums, drawings, performances and printed publications. Together with George Korsmit, in 2005 she established The Rainbow Soulclub, an art studio in an Amsterdam shelter for the homeless and long-term drug users. Since then, they have run a weekly program in the studio, often together with their art students.
Saskia Janssen lives and works in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Art in The Hague and was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in 1996 and 1997. Janssen teaches at de Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. She has recently exhibited in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam; Museum Schunck, Heerlen; Lijiang Studio, Yunnan, China; and Deltaworkers, New Orleans, USA.