Janet Vollebregt
Photo: João P. Teles
‘My work is an invitation to see through things, to be conscious of the invisible but sensible. I work with subtle energy to harmonise both the user of space and space itself.’
On the cross-borders between architecture and arts, Janet Vollebregt creates nurturing spheres of various size and order. Her work ranges from landscape to architectural structures, from space to object.
Janet’s spaces and interactive works provoke energetic self-awareness of the public. Through the invisible power of energy fields, her work establishes harmony and connection to the larger whole and increases the feeling of welcoming and nurturing in the environment in which they are introduced.
Vollebregt’s artistic approach is rooted in a technical architectural formation and a lifelong study and practice of eastern and western philosophy and therapy, with an emphasis on Jin Shin Jyutsu, a Japanese energetic healing art.
Living and working in the rough nature of the inlands of Brazil for 20 years and the understanding coming from nature and its native inhabitants also deeply influence the way she approaches creation.
Studio Janet Vollebregt is the evolving network of professionals that co-create Janet’s larger installations, spheres and spaces.
Janet holds a Masters Degree in Architecture and a Masters degree in Innovation in Management of the Built Environment from Delft University of Technology. She holds an equivalent Degree at Universidade Nacional de Brasília. She is a Feng Shue Consultant trained by the Chinese Dr. Jes.T.Lim. Janet is a Mentor in the Japanese healing Art Jin Shin Jyutsu. She has worked, built, lectured and exhibited in many countries, with a focus on the Netherlands and Brazil.
Vollebregt has been working on the creation of nurturing environments since 1994. In her early career she has played a considerate role in the innovation of work-environments, breaking open traditional structures and replacing them by ICT supported grids of different user and activity oriented spaces, with the actual rise of nomadic workspaces as a result.
Janet worked as strategic architect at DEGW/Twijnstra in Amsterdam, London and Sydney. To have the freedom to study the relation between well-being and the environment more profoundly, she started working as an independent in 1997. Janet was invited to do a Phd. at Delft University of Technology in 1998. After a couple of months she found research rules to restrictive and stopped her Phd. to write the book CHAORDER, on user oriented architecture, together with Titia van den Berg. CHAORDER turned into a foundation, which also made a film and two expositions.
During her continuous research on nurturing environments, since 1994 Janet has emerged deeply in Eastern & Western Wisdom Traditions and Religions. She studied various lineages of Buddhism and Shinto, and immersed in Meditation, Yoga, Chinese Feng Shue and Japanese Jin Shin Jyutsu.
In 2005 an assignment brought Janet to the inlands of Brazil, where she now lives and works for 20 years together with her partner Xavier de Bode, building and reforesting with native people, examining nurturing environments in close relation to wild nature. It is here she started experimenting with the creation nurturing objects of art and their influence on well-being and consciousness. Up until this day, she runs the 22 project O.Sítio in Brazil, with the aim to be able to protect nature, water-wells, and native knowledge of the use of plants and to support the lives of the people working here.
In 2016 Janet was invited for a first solo exhibition called Art.Chi.Textures in Galeria Espaço Aberto, Alto Paraíso de Goías. Interest in the workings of consciousness and well-being also led to the creation of the first Floatation Centre in South America, where Janet and Xavier coached people in their self-assessment though floating in a sensory deprivation tank.
Since 2006 Janet lives between Brazil and The Netherlands, working on international exhibitions and projects on the cross-boarders of Architecture and Art.
Biography
Representation:
Galeria Luis Maluf, São Paulo
Collaborations:
Museu Nacional da Republica, Brasilia
Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden
MACs Museum Sorocaba, São Paulo
Museum Volkenkunde, Leiden
DIOR
KURA ARTE
Est Art Foundation, Leiden
Thermen Museum, Heerlen
Piet Boon Studio
The Dutch Embassy in Brazil
Galeria Espaço Aberto, Alto Paraiso de Goias
Ministry of Development, Madrid
Radar Arte, São Paulo
International Day of Peace
Cristina Pessoa, Trancoso
Tess van Zalinge, Amsterdam
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