“I grew up among creative people as both my parents are art lovers and many of their friends are active in the creative sector. I did a lot of analogue photography when I was a teenager and I have a degree in Artistic Direction. The study focused more on advertisement and its commercial qualities, whereas I was more interested in potential creative and aesthetic experiences, which had me longing for a more autonomous practice. This is one of the reasons why I decided to study Art in Europe and moved to England in 2013. I worked as an au pair while continuing my search for everything related to art. At some point I visited some friends of mine in the Netherlands, which is how I came to fall in love with the country. Originally I wanted to go to Amsterdam, but looking back, I am glad that I attended Minerva Art Academy in Groningen. It has been a very healthy and supportive environment, while also providing a challenging and stimulating curriculum. As soon as I started my degree here, I also started volunteering for jobs in the art scene. On top of that I organised lectures and courses about various subjects and started a collective with Jorien Ketelaar.
I see myself as an artist facilitator; I create situations and spaces for people to meet and for dialogue to take place. Themes such as food and sustainability, and how we carry these things realistically in our lives, are important in my artistic practice. I was part of the 100 dinners project by Tom Oliver Jacobson. For my contribution I organised a “red” dinner which had tomato as a main ingredient and theme. It was an amazing experience but I realised I would rather be a host than the chef, since you are otherwise too focused on cooking, which is only one aspect of a dinner and it doesn’t allow you to interact with the public a lot in a way that would be meaningful to me. Currently I am partaking in a project organised by Chiara Tammaro from Moshpit of Creation, who is working on a bike with a vending machine on it, for which I am making a contribution which centres around a traditional Argentinan spice called Chimichurri. Compared to a lot of art, food is a great way of opening up to a bigger audience, since it is more open and accessible by nature. While also having a lot of historical and cultural connotations that are also interesting as an artist to me.
There is a lot to navigate as an artist, your personal and professional life are intimately interconnected and there is the pressure to be efficient workers, but I believe moments of quietude and stillness are necessary for artists. Having just received the Mondriaan Fonds Kunstenaar Start, I decided it was a good time to sit down and re-evaluate my artistic practice as a whole. Having this fund means I finally have the time to dive into research questions that last longer than just single projects. In recent years I have been very active in setting up platforms such as Lack of Feedback, a feedback group and Does It Have A Name? performance evenings, which I still consider part of my artistic practice, just as well being part of the creative teams of ARTisBOOK and artist initiative VHDG, however now I want to be part of these things as an artist and less as an organiser and take the time and to interlace and explore the individual threads that have been existing within my work.”