As a visual artist and writer, I am fascinated by the physical presence of people and the relationship they have with the immediate environment. I conduct my artistic research in physical places. I walk, and make connections with myself through my environment; inversions, observations and physical movement. The resulting -written walks- are the visual and written fundament of my work. With a diversity of materials, I am searching for ways to visualize recurring themes such as transience, vulnerability and the physical. By incorporating forms and colors of human-looking aspects in my work, I play with recognition and alienation of her own physical being at the same time.
Two years ago, I began to use walking as a research method; an artistic study in which I reflect on my environment and my position as a human being and an artist on the basis of my own identity. I use self-reflection, observation, and physical exercise to establish connections within myself and with my environment. I based my thesis on two scientific articles. The first article is ‘Hoezo verbonden met de natuur’ (How are we connected with nature?) by Chris Elzinga (2007). Among the topics he addresses are why we, as human beings, feel less and less connected with nature and what this barrier causes, such as the impact of technological developments, ego-consciousness, and anthropocentrism. The second article, or the ‘walking journal’, is ‘The Walking Seminar: Embodied research in emergent Anthoropocene Landscapes’ (Christian Ernsten, Nick Shepherd, and Dirk-Jan Visser, 2018). It is a one-time publication describing three ‘Walking Seminars’. The article consists of factual and scientific texts, alternated with narrative and personal texts. The core of the seminars produced by the author is the use of walking as a method, and the interface of landscape and history, in which the contemplation of time, materiality, and memory also plays a part. Because of the themes they address, both articles are particularly suited to the study I am conducting as a research method. I will therefore quote both articles and use them as a frame of reference. I will link this to the personal ‘written walks’ I will be taking which also serve as the foundation for my visual art.