IEVA JAKUSA PORTFOLIO

CONTACT
hi@ievajakusa.com
instagram




Ieva Jakusa is a Latvian, Amsterdam-based artist and designer working with media installations and print through a research-driven practice. Her work examines how folklore and ritual function as social systems that shape collective identity and material culture.

Drawing on her background in Latvia, where traditional practices have historically served as a tool for sustaining national identity, and her experience in the Netherlands, where cultural symbols are often commodified, she explores how tradition shifts between resistance, nationalism, and global circulation. Through multimedia installations and public programs, Jakusa reclaims traditional culture as a raw material, open to reinterpretation and evolution, inviting audiences to reflect on cultural heritage, nationalism, and capitalistic appropriation.



CV
SELECTED WORK FLAT NOTES, 2025




FLAT NOTES, 2025
  Video projection and printed essay on silver paper, 420 × 210 mm

Special thanks to the Latvian Folklore Archive for permission to edit the archival footage. Original recording: Kristīne Upmale performing “Jau Saule Riet”. Latvian Folklore Archive, video unit no. LFK v045-000943. Cinematography: Zigurds Vidiņš.

Presented at:
 Rewire Festival, The Hague, April 2025


DESCRIPTION

Flat Notes builds on a similar principle as Tuned Voices, but turns its attention to archival material and the aesthetics of degradation.

Working with raw VHS recordings from the Latvian Folklore Archive, marked by visual flicker, magnetic interference, and sonic noise, Flat Notes isolates the voice of a single singer from the surrounding static.

Through digital processing, the grainy, irregular vocal track is gradually stripped of its texture and autotuned into mechanical precision. By juxtaposing the original, noisy footage with its sanitised counterpart, the work examines how institutional efforts to preserve oral traditions often erase the very qualities that make them intimate and alive.


Printed essay, distributed during the CAAOSSS performance.
Rewire Festival, 2025. 

Rewire Festival, 2025. 

The projection was combined with a specially tuned spatial sound mapping, using reverb to enhance the impact of autotune.
Rewire Festival, 2025. 

©2025 IEVA JAKUSA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED