Jordan Rita Seruya Awori (JRSA, b.1988), born in Nairobi, Kenya, and based in Frankfurt, Germany since 2020, creates interdisplinary works exploring memory, identity, and space. Her practice spans collage, installation, video, sound, and performance, often involving intuitive collaborations with materials like water, thread, hair and soil.

A graduate in Arts and Design from the University of Nairobi, JRSA’s background in interior design shapes her approach to space, making the environment an active part of her work. Her art has been exhibited in group and solo shows in Europe, and the U.S., with an ongoing exhibition at Museum Giersch der Goethe Universität and an upcoming solo at Basis Projektraum.

Her themes span personal healing, collective memory, and the slow rituals of emotional excavation. JRSA often uses tension—between control and chaos, personal and universal, stillness and movement—to reflect the quiet complexities of human experience. While her diasporic perspective informs aspects of her approach, it is not the sole lens; instead, her work resists singular narratives, inviting viewers to enter ambiguous, layered spaces where multiple truths coexist.

  • My practice is rooted in layering—as a visual method, a conceptual tool, and a metaphor for lived experience. I work across collage (digital and physical), installation, video, sound, and performance, often letting materials guide the process. Water is one of my key collaborators. I pour it over printed images, allowing it to warp and bleed the surface in unpredictable ways. As a self-described perfectionist, I find liberation in this lack of control—it forces me to surrender, to let the work breathe on its own.

    I often use archival photographs from my family and life in Kenya, weaving personal history into broader questions about identity, memory, and space. Materials like thread, hair, rope, soil, and pebbles have also entered my work—textural elements that evoke grounding and entanglement. My installations are not just images on walls—they creep, stretch, and crawl into the physical space, engaging the room as part of the story. My background in interior design shapes these decisions, as I see space itself as a narrative force.

    My approach has evolved over time. Influenced by Nairobi’s vibrant culture, my earlier work featured bold shapes and colors. Since relocating to Europe, I’ve embraced earthy tones and organic forms experienced during winter, reflecting the contrast between Nairobi’s warmth and Europe’s muted landscapes. While I still cherish bright colors in some of my works, most of my art now gravitates toward texture and subtlety, focusing on the natural beauty of things that grow, crack, or decay.

    I’m drawn to the in-between—between stillness and motion, memory and forgetting, beauty and awkwardness. My work lives in this tension, where nothing is fixed and everything is layered. I take inspiration from nature’s forms—branches, cracks, rivers, roots—as well as from music videos, which I believe are some of the most urgent artworks of our time. Like them, I aim to compress emotion, atmosphere, and message into fleeting but memorable experiences.

    Ultimately, I see my art as an altar—built slowly, intuitively, and imperfectly. Each layer carries a piece of something: a thought, a scar, a sound, a root. Together, they form a space where viewers are invited not to look for answers, but to sit with what rises.

  • 2025:

    Group:

    • Fixing Futures - Frankfurt, Museum Giersch der Goethe Universität (05.05 - 31.08.2025)

    • Southern Lights festival - Frankfurt, Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum (01 - 31.03.2025)

    • Postcards From The Edge 2025 (Visual AIDS) – New York, Berry Campbell Gallery

    2024:

    Solo:

    • Chini ya Maji solo exhibition - Frankfurt, Basis e.V. Projektraum (02 - 08.08.2024)

    Group:

    • Code virtual exhibition - The Holy Art Gallery (23.10 - 23.11.2024)

    • Crémant. Cava. Booty Bounce (ccbb) community hangout - Frankfurt, Basis e.V. (21.09.2024) - watu collective

    • Basis Frankfurt Sommerschau art market - Frankfurt, Basis e.V. (07.09 - 10.11.2024)

    • Goddess II’ virtual group exhibition (23.02.24 – 31.03.24)

    • Postcards From The Edge 2024 (Visual AIDS) – New York, Berry Campbell Gallery

    2023:

    Group:

    • Berlin Art Institute Artspring open house exhibition – Berlin, Berlin Art Institute (03 - 04.06)

    • Postcards From The Edge 2023 (Visual AIDS) – New York, Berry Campbell Gallery

    • Action against Hate: Diversity & Religion – London, University Of Westminster

    Solo:

    • The Women of Firsts – Frankfurt, Roseli Cafe And Bar

    • Remembering and shaping democracy (Frankfurt Post Colonial) – Frankfurt, Medico international e.V.

  • 2025:

    • Lift-Off Filmmaker Sessions Volume 3 (23.12.24 - 05.01.2025)

    • BGHRA 2025 Virtual Conference: Art as Resistance (rekinning, reckoning, and justice)

    2023:

    • BGHRA 2023 Virtual Conference: Art as Resistance (Transcultural Expressions)

    2022:

    • BGHRA 2022 Virtual Conference: All Black Lives Matter

    • Boden International Film Festival

    • Berlin Indie Film Festival

    • Venice Intercultural Film Festival

    • 1st Monthly Film Festival – Belgrade

    • Lift-Off Filmmaker Sessions @ PinewoodStudios

    • Lift-Off Filmmaker Sessions – hosted by Lift-Off Global Network

    • First-Time Filmmaker Sessions @ Pinewood Studios

    • Moody Crab Film Fest: India

  • 2024:

    • Kufa na Kupona part of the ‘basis Sommerschau’ and ‘Frankfurt Art Experience’ 2024 - Frankfurt, Basis e.V.(07.09.2024)

  • 2025:

    • The Book of A—Z - marking the sixth anniversary of A—Z (coming soon)

    • Fixing Futures Catalogue - relatated to the Fixing Features exhibition (Frankfurt, Museum Giersch der Goethe Universität - 05.05 - 31.08.2025)

    2024:

    • Suboart magazine – issue 22 (April 2024)

  • 2025

    Group:

    BGHRA 2025 Virtual Conference: Art as Resistance (rekinning, reckoning, and justice)

    Solo:

    Southern Lights festival - Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Frankfurt

    2024

    ‘black, trans, queer, liberation rights inside and outside 069 - Bar Central, Frankfurt

    2023

    BGHRA 2023 Virtual Conference: Art as Resistance (Transcultural Expressions)

  • 2025:

    ‘Für Mich’ Workshop (20.05.2025 - 29.07.2025)

    A cooperation between Places To See (part of the Frankfurt Department of Culture) and Museum Giersch der Goethe Universität.

    5 workshops facilitated by JRSA aimed to create a safe and empowering environment in which participants can explore feminist themes, self-expression, and intersectionality through mixed-media collage art.

Contact and Studio:

Info@jordanawori.com

Basis Studios (Gutleutstraße 8-12, 60329 Frankfurt am Main)