Jana Vos

Image from "45 Unfixed Contact-Printed Screenshots”  project by Jana Vos

Biography

website: https://vosjana.myportfolio.com/

Instagram: @vos_jana_

Jana Vos (b. 2000) is a Belgian visual artist based in Ghent. Her work explores the philosophical and ethical dimensions of photography in an era of social media and visual abundance. Through recurring concerns such as photographic impermanence, media ethics, and contemporary modes of image consumption, she investigates how photography's relationship to memory, preservation, and attention is being reshaped by contemporary image culture.

The project

The work explores the relationship between photography, memory and impermanence in today's image culture. While photography has long been associated with preservation, today's digital environments increasingly familiarise us with images designed to disappear. Stories vanish after twenty-four hours, feeds continuously renew themselves, and images often circulate faster than we remember them. Between January and May 2025, screenshots collected from the artist's Instagram feed were translated into large-scale silver gelatin prints on baryta-coated fibre paper. Left unfixed after development, the photographs remain light-sensitive and gradually disappear throughout the exhibition period.

By allowing the photographs to slowly vanish, the installation reflects on the tension between the desire to preserve moments and a growing acceptance of transience. It asks whether photography still functions primarily as a medium of preservation, or whether disappearance has become equally accepted.

Image from "45 Unfixed Contact-Printed Screenshots”  project by Jana Vos

Image from "45 Unfixed Contact-Printed Screenshots”  project by Jana Vos