Janis Rafa completed her education in Fine Art at the University of Leeds (2002-2012) with a PhD in video art and was a resident at the Rijksakademie (2013-2014) with a scholarship by Onassis Foundation. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2020).In 2020 she was commissioned for a new video work by Fondazione In Between Art Film for the project Mascarilla 19: Codes of Domestic Violence. In 2019 she presented her first museum solo at Centraal Museum in Utrecht. Her feature fiction film, Kala azar (2020), had its world premiere in the International Film Festival Rotterdam (KNF award), a US premiere at New Directors/ New Films at MoMA (New York, 2020), followed by an international festival run (25 festivals, 5 wins) and a Dutch cinema release (2020).

Rafa’s works have also been shown at MAXXI (Rome, 2020), State of Concept (Athens, 2020), Manifesta 12 (Palermo, 2018), Palazzo Medici Riccardi (Florence, 2017), Centre d’art Contemporain Chanot (France, 2017), Kunsthalle Munster (Germany, 2017), Museum Voorlinden (2017), EYE Filmmuseum (Amsterdam, 2016), Palazzo Strozzi (2015), State Museum Thessaloniki (Greece, 2011), amongst other venues. Rafa’s works are in collections of the Dutch museums
Stedelijk, Centraal, Voorlinden and part of Fondazione In Between Art Film (Italy).