I am an artist-researcher with a PhD degree in the (Environmental) Humanities on climate-related art. I am working on creative projects, such as abstract art, photography, research comics and participatory artistic workshops as reflective spaces to process socio-ecological crises in local contexts. I officially entered the artworld when I met social change artist Daniel Schinasi (1933-2021) during a visit to Southern France more than ten years ago, in 2014. He is one of those artists who create art to document society and who advocate for a better world. I soon realised that it was his personal and professional path that also needed documentation: He had to flee his country of birth due to political turmoil, and never lost sight of his passion for art and his desire for positive social change. Our encounter turned into a continuous intercultural, creative collaboration with a common thread: for a world of peace and hope. My photographs, interviews and short film about Daniel Schinasi have by now been shown in multiple cultural institutions across Europe. This encounter would not only give me a mentor and dear friend for life, it also impacted my own path. Together with the inspiration my dad’s paintings gave me, it was a key moment after which I decided to dedicate my life to art and its connection to eco-social themes.

I completed both an Arts Master and a Sustainability Master (art and sustainability did not exist in one program yet), followed by my PhD, in which the worlds of visual art and sustainability were coming together in one major project. I received the prestigious PhD in the Humanities grant from the Dutch Research Council NWO in 2019, after studying and learning about art and sustainability for years. During my doctoral research, I continued to produce and exhibit work, developing three main bodies of practice which all combine art and research practices:

1. Research comics translating academic findings on sustainability into visual narratives. I received the NWO Synergy Award 2022 for this project. It exemplifies my commitment to artistic research, making complex findings accessible through multimodal storytelling.
2. Referential abstract works addressing the climate crisis, circular economy and wellbeing, combining ambiguity with intention and maintaining a research-informed conceptual framework.
3. Short film “Daniel Schinasi”, which continues to be screened across European cultural institutions. Addressing identity and memory, the film demonstrates my early engagement with artistic research as knowledge production, positioning the artist as both investigator and communicator.

I successfully defended my PhD in the Humanities on climate-related visual art in 2024 for which I received the Best PhD Thesis 2024 Award. Art is not only part of my life as creative practice (see my visual art portfolio, writing, and art workshops), but I am also looking at art with my researcher hat on (see my PhD).

Since completing my PhD in 2024, I have focused on consolidating my position as an artist-researcher working at the intersection of art and science. I have increasingly developed collaborative and public-facing formats, including workshops, exhibitions and partnerships that bring artistic research into community contexts.

Overall, my development has been characterized by a gradual sharpening of thematic focus, an expansion of media and formats and a sustained commitment to making complex societal and scientific issues accessible and engaging through research-informed visual art.

My roles as researcher and artist are not separate worlds; they connect and empower each other by offering complementary lenses to explore, make sense of and become active regarding the arts, transformations and eco-social change. The imagination is a recurring concept in my practical and theoretical art endeavors. These address human-nature connections, which is why this website is called imaginehumannature.art. Enjoy!