Studies                                                                                                                                                                         2018 – 2020: Premaster, Master Art History, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Groningen.

2014 – 2018: Teacher of Fine Arts and Design, Art Academy Minerva, Groningen.

Projects                                                                                                                                                    

2022 (until the present): Artist In Residence, Asylum Seekers’ Centre, Drachten.

The graphic novel I’m drawing is to lighten different perspectives on the life of refugees. Within several themes, I gave multiple workshops to teens at the Asylum Seekers’ Centre from January to May to integrate their work into the novel. It’s called Verre Oorden, Lange Vluchten, and is about the contrast between how they perceive the world from within and my observations during interesting encounters.

2021 – 2022: ‘DeMensplek’.

During my education as a Visual Arts & Design teacher, I participated in the Ik Zie, Ik Zie project by artist Herman van Hoogdalem to learn how to portray people in the Odensehuis. The Odensehuis is a walk-in nursing home for people with beginning dementia. After I came into contact with the ‘Gedachtenkamer’, the subject of elderly care never left me while curiosity arose about what the role of art meant for this. The project made me realize that this collaboration is cross-disciplinary: the interdisciplinary method that was applied brought about a new perspective in which the art and care sectors positively complement each other.

Last year, I joined DeMensplek project in which informal carers and caregivers of ’t Blauwbörgje, artists, and researchers developed a vision of a place where dementia as a label does not exist, in which protocols are no longer walls, in which the walls of the institutions become permeable.

2017 – 2018: ‘The Altermodern Project’.

In my graduation year, I was able to create The Alter Modern Project for students at Minerva. I challenged students to express themselves about art in a cultural context, by making art. It sounds like a paradox, but I do believe that talking about symbols, aesthetics, taboos or authenticity will stimulate cultural differences.

I wrote a thesis about these differences and how they can become a part of an artistic, individual process to learn new things from each other or change our perceptions.
That being said, I’m interested in the boundaries of culture, the things we discuss every day on the news channel, and moral issues which that won’t be spoken out loud in public.
Just because it’s ‘not the right thing to do’.

The Alter Modern Project is about identity: How do you relate to cultural differences, and what would you like to contribute to society nowadays as an artist?

Nominations                                                                                                                                                                 2018: Klaas Dijkstra Academy prize, by the Klaas Dijkstra fund.

At the graduation exhibition of 2018, my installation was nominated for the Klaas Dijkstra Academy prize. I recreated a picture of our nightlife with a live-action video ‘Nocturne’ and handmade dolls that were also on display. The painted triptych was called ‘A Prima Vista’.