[1] She uses light, space and transparent materials to create immersive installations and spatial drawings that appear ephemeral, elusive, fragile and intangible, and ultimately confront people with the limits of their perception.
Those constellations of reflected light dots, immaterial objects and fleeting phenomena are animated by the observer, move with him/her; they are experienced as ultimately subjective, transient, elusive, fragile and intangible.
[25] In her following installation Prostor, 2003, in Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, the ambience was created by measuring and multiplying a multitude of spatial units drawn in space with threads of transparent fishing line stretched over the three walls of the room, so that the entrance itself was blocked for the visitor and opened only to take over the screen function.
Light, which implies the possibility of a visual representation of the world, is not rendered by transparent threads of fishing lines, and almost completely dematerializes white space, making it intangible and invisible.
In the central installation Latency (Sala Luzzato) she covered walls and the floor with transparent glossy acryl glass which enabled the daylight, garden and the water to enter the space in the form of reflected unstable images, while the actual Scarpa's architecture remained visible in the background.
With the similar intention of "moving into a historical location, and uncovering its invisible dimension",[28] Franke's installation Entanglement is a Fragile State, 2012, a geometric structure, a woven linear wall made of semi transparent rope catching light from the windows in the Saint-Nicolas church in Caen in France, reveals the geometry and metaphysical significance of the late Romanesque architecture.
Phenomena widely researched in neuroscience since beginning of 20th century and used for diagnosing photosensitive epilepsy, where Franke, an epileptic patient, first encountered it,[29] as well used in art - Brion Gysin's Dreamachine.
Seeing with Eyes Closed, 2011,[30] the first installation in the series is a curved object with screen of lights, in front of which the visitor sits on the cushion, and engages in an introvert, meditative individual experience.
[31] We close our eyes and see a flock of birds, 2013, commissioned by MONA and Sharjah Art Foundation, which accommodates five people at the same time offers a possibility of sharing experience with others, and primes the visitors with its title.
Limits of Perception Lab[42] in Savvy Contemporary in Berlin, 2020, focused on multidimensionality and included a "laboratory" for possible exploration of the phenomenal experiences of the voluntary participants, employing 5-D altered states of consciousness questionnaire.
[50][51] In 2019 together with architects Tommi Grönlund / Petteri Nisunen she realised the installation Imminence,[52] shown in the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rijeka and subsequently in Anhava Gallery in Helsinki in 2020, and public light installation Time Slip, under the Titov Bridge in Rijeka, both as part of Rijeka European Capital of Culture 2020 project[53][54] In 2005 she collaborated on the exhibition Izbjegavanje / Avoid, in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb with artists Silvio Vujicić and Damir Ocko, in 2015 on Srebrenica 1995-2015, an audio-visual event commemorating 20 years from Srebrenica genocide in collaboration with Carl Michael von Hausswolff[55] Although known for her large scale spatial and light installations, Ivana Franke is also recognized for drawings and objects investigating concepts, visualisations and perception of spatial dimensions, and perceptual multistability.
In the exhibition Potential Degrees of Freedom, 2014, in Richter Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, she employs projection of Tesseract - hypercube - silkscreened on translucent paper which opens two dimensionality of the drawing into space.