Upcoming:

2026

6th of March - 7th of Juni | Lend Me Your Ears, TENT | Performing as storyteller for David Maroto’s installation Lend Me Your Ears

7th of June | Het Aktiverend Volkstheater, Witte Rook | Performing as storyteller for David Maroto’s installation Het Aktiverend Volkstheater | Opening 7th of June 2026

22nd of April, Conversas, Artist talk, TENT, Rotterdam



Recent


December 2025, Granted Project Stipend, Fonds Kwadraat

13th December 2025, Performance, POPOP, Nijmegen

November 2025, Granted Project Stipend, CBK Rotterdam

September 2025, Granted Project Stipend, Stichting Volkskracht Rotterdam

Sept - October 2025 | Screening PLOW | The inaugural Festival of Video Performance Art |
Helsinki, Vienna, and Riga


Sept. 2025 - Auctioning of the work ‘Relics from the sunken World’’ - De Aanschouw Veiling | Rotterdam

23rd of June - 11th of July 2025 | Teaching performance art course | University of Xiamen | China


28 of March - 16th of April 2025 | Auw! Wauw! - Verbeelding van verdriet en troost | Lebuinuskerk | Deventer


30th of November 2024 | Dear Shapes in Space @Papengas in Nijmegen | curating performance art event | in collab with POPOP


October 2024 | AIR @WitteRook | Breda


13 - 15th of September 2024 | ACRXL | in collab with WTC Art Gallery and Art Index Rotterdam | performance


20 & 21 September 2024 | 1st of September | presenting AIR @Art-S-Cool at Into the Woods Festival | Amersfoort
In collab with Lilian Kreuzberger, Antonio Guzman, Yair Callender, Timothy Scholte, Beng Yuengyong, Leslie Nagel, Mourad Aouragh en Afra Eisma |
ELJA Foundation


1st of September 2024 | presenting AIR @Art-S-Cool at Bosspot festival | Amersfoort
In collab with Lilian Kreuzberger, Antonio Guzman, Yair Callender, Timothy Scholte, Beng Yuengyong, Leslie Nagel, Mourad Aouragh en Afra Eisma |
ELJA Foundation


20th of June 2024 | presenting AIR @Art-S-Cool at Nooit Meer Naar Huis | Scheveningen
In collab with Lilian Kreuzberger, Antonio Guzman, Yair Callender, Timothy Scholte, Beng Yuengyong, Leslie Nagel, Mourad Aouragh en Afra Eisma |
ELJA Foundation


7 - 16th of June 2024 | Oerol | performance & music | in collab with Ososonic - sound art

Art is Life & Life is Art

Jessica (she/they) creates sensory performances, music, rituals, speculative tools, and visual installations as means for mankind to collectively evolve towards the new age: the Symbioceen. Performatively and artistically researching and writing on topic of The Art of Living (LevensKunst) as her contribution for man and nature to again co-inhabite our beautiful earth in harmony.

Working with performance - music - food art - fine arts - storytelling
#Folklorist | #AlterModernManifest | #ArtOfLiving | #Symbioceen | #Nature | #Artivism

Jessica works and lives in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Portfolio available upon request

BIO

Be it for human beings like me, be it for other animals, plants, nature-beings, born into domains, ruled, manipulated and supressed by pover human minds. It seems to be an endless and fruitless undertaking: the journey: fighting free from it’s shadows and evolving towards the new world. So endless and hopeless it often seems. But the fibers in our stardust-based bodies still know; in affection and silence it can deeply remember:
‘’In the end it only took trusting, in a mustard seed.’’

Jessica van Deursen (she/they: it’s all is okay) is working on a artsy fartsy movement: one that will change the world. Nothing less. Period. But not sharing too many words here yet. If you want to be part in this to-be historic movement towards the Alter Modernity, then subscribe to the newsletter below, and receive all inside information.

Jessica’s work can be seen as a diary of her own journey as a human being. Saying ‘fuck you’ to the odds of growing up in a troubled family, and breaking free from it’s subsequent conditions. She handles her life as the subject of her investigation on the nature/nurture question. Just curious as to how far she can take it, in this life long endeavor, she calls ‘‘LevensKunst’’ (Art of Living).

Over the last 15 years, Jessica’s created happenings and performances. In often very testing performances, she explored her physical and mental capabilities.

Through the combination of music, installation, performance and storytelling, she created spa-like retreats [The Great Health] , both dreamlike and disgust-provoking experiences and other estranging realms for the visitor to walk right into, to likewise explore their minds and body’s capabilities, and to dive into unexplored alternative realms, together with the artist(s).

More recently, she started ‘performatively designing’ tools, rituals and lifestyles for alternative ways of living: more sustainable, autonomous and more engaged, minimalist and eco-friendly: for more conscious ways of living. Often based on researching forgotten historic dutch / northern European traditions, knowledge, and crafts. Translating them into contemporary and appealing practically applicable desings. Because that way, her online blog-followers, can join her in the process and think along.

Like creating a hyper ecological and ‘klederdracht’ (Dutch folklore wear’) inspired minimalist set of clothing, which she wore for a full year to test this lifestyle [Re-Fashion]. During covid-times, the started creating her own medicine from herbs that grow no further than one kilometer from her home or temporary residence [Re-Pharmacy].

In 2016 Jessica was rewarded the Young Talent Grand by the Mondriaan Foundation for her work.

Jessica studied BA fine-arts at the Willem de Kooning academy in Rotterdam,
Performance-art & Community-art at Codarts / Piet Zwart (MA education)
and a Minor in philosophy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.


Forthcoming and recent previous solo/duo exhibitions include Art Rotterdam (NL) | ICI University for the Creative Arts Xiamen (CH) | Glasshouse NYC (US) | Palazzo del Mora, Venice (IT) | Trienal Deformes (CL), Pictura, Dordrecht (NL) | KIPAF, Kolkata (IN) | Concordia, Enschede (NL) | Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (NL) | Root Gallery, Rotterdam (NL) | Pulchri studios, The Hague (NL) | Defibrilator Performance Art Gallery, Chicago (US) | Goethe Institut, Rotterdam (NL) | Art ZNSTD, Zaandam (NL) Stedelijk Museum Breda (NL) | This Art Fair, Amsterdam (NL)