August 2020/ Welcome to Ank van Engelen
Ank van Engelen is a sculptor from The Netherlands.
During her residency, her aim is to connect strongly with nature by making long solitary hikes while focusing on perception and reflecting on the place itself being in solitude. Working periods in Ireland, and the artist in residencies in the very north of Finland and Norway in the last years, taught her loneliness doesn’t really exist when you connect with nature. Her aim is to reflect on walking in nature and alongside the ocean by writing in her ‘Ocean Diary’. She started this diary already in Mangawhai at the east coast, where she stays since March 2020.
Experiencing the west coast at Muriwai, will give her the opportunity to find similarities and new insights and compare both sides of the ocean. She will do so by photographing and writing in the same way she did in Mangawhai already.
Translating the original Dutch text into English in the same poetic and sensitive tone is a challenge for her.
Her tools to explore the new surroundings during the residence are: good hiking boots and clothes, her camera, a small diary for drawing and writing during the hikes and a computer for keeping the weblog-diary in the evenings.
She will also work on shells she already collected on the east coast (and maybe new ones found on the west coast) because the hands of a sculptor always seek for material.
Please don’t hesitate to contact her: post@ankvanengelen.nl