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![Detail]( "Detail")
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![À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay)]( "À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay)")
infoDeveloped in collaboration with ceramicists Alcides Morais and Isabel Sanches and with diasporic communities in Loulé, Lisbon and Rotterdam.
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![Around the Clay – Archive Portugal, 2025]( "Around the Clay – Archive Portugal, 2025")
infoIn collaboration with Isabel Sanches and diasporic communities in Loulé and Lisbon.
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![Detail]( "Detail")
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![Around the Clay]( "Around the Clay")
infoIn collaboration with ceramicist Isabel Sanches Tavares.
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![Detail]( "Detail")
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![Around the Clay – Archive Rotterdam, 2025]( "Around the Clay – Archive Rotterdam, 2025")
infoIn collaboration with ceramicist Alcides Morais and members of the Cape Verdean community in the Netherlands.
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![Around the Clay – Installation 2024–2025]( "Around the Clay – Installation 2024–2025")
infoInstallation with archives developed in Portugal, the Netherlands and Cape Verde.
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![À Volta do Barro (Around Clay)]( "À Volta do Barro (Around Clay)")
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![À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay)]( "À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay)")
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![Around the Clay – Rabil, 2025]( "Around the Clay – Rabil, 2025")
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![Around the Clay – Rabil, 2025]( "Around the Clay – Rabil, 2025")
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![Around the Clay – Rabil, 2025]( "Around the Clay – Rabil, 2025")
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![Around the Clay – Archive Lisbon, 2024]( "Around the Clay – Archive Lisbon, 2024")
infoIn collaboration with Isabel Sanches and diasporic communities in Lisbon.
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![Detail]( "Detail")
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![Around the Clay – Archive Lisbon, 2024]( "Around the Clay – Archive Lisbon, 2024")
infoIn collaboration with Isabel Sanches and diasporic communities in Lisbon.
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![Detail]( "Detail")
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Anna Nunes van den Hoven (1993) is a Dutch-Portuguese artist and ecologist specializing in cultural and spiritual practices connected to ecological knowledge systems and care for the landscape.
Her conceptual, project-based work unfolds through long-term collaborations with knowledge holders and communities across the Atlantic world. Within these collaborative processes, she examines how colonial histories have shaped the circulation of knowledge systems that embody ecological care, and how these traditions continue to evolve in contemporary contexts.
Since 2024, she has been developing À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay), a long-term project centred on a female ceramic tradition. Through installations and evolving material archives, the project traces the trajectories of this tradition across different regions of the Atlantic world.
Her work has been presented internationally, including at the São Tomé Biennale and ART The Hague.
Websites
Personal website
annanunesvandenhoven.com/Social media
Curriculum vitae
Education
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Self-taught
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2024 - 2025Sculpture course Ingrid Rekers
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2022 - 2023Writing coaching by Yoeke Nagel, supported by Foundation Voordekunst. Yoeke Nagel
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2022 - 2023This Work Club This Art Foundation
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2016 - 2018Master of Science (MSc) Biology Wageningen University diploma
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2012 - 2016Bachelor of Science (BSc) Forest & Nature Conservation Wageningen Univeristy diploma
exhibitions
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2025House of the Future III - Fertile Grounds Gallery OpenArtExchange Schiedam, Netherlands Group
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2025Aflorar | Terra e Memória Instituto Camões Lisbon, Portugal Group
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2024Limburg Biennale Marres, House for Contemporary Culture Maastricht, Netherlands Group
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2024(Re)Discovering Ourselves XI Bienal de Arte e Cultura de São Tomé e Príncipe São Tomé , Sao Tome and Principe Group
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2024ART The Hague Gallery OpenArtExchange The Hague, Netherlands Group
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2023ART The Hague Gallery OpenArtExchange The Hague, Netherlands Group
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2023TIES Gallery OpenArtExchange Schiedam, Netherlands Group
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2023SKIN CBK Zuidoost Amsterdam, Netherlands Group
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2023Art in the Park INNOCOM Beerzel, Belgium Group
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2022In Herinnering Dutch Portrait Prize, Loods 6 Amsterdam, Netherlands Group
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2022Museum Night The Hague Amare The Hague, Netherlands Group
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2021ART the Hague Foundation Uit Het Gareel The Hague, Netherlands Group
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2021Taking you there… Gallery Warnars & Warnars Haarlem, Netherlands Duo
Projects
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2025
À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay) Portugal, Cape Verde, The Netherlands, Netherlands annanunesvandenhoven.com/project/a-volta-do-barro/ À Volta do Barro (Around the Clay) has developed since 2024 as a transnational, collaborative artistic practice. The practice emerged from residencies with ceramicists from Boa Vista and Santiago (Cape Verde), bearers of a ceramic tradition in which women have historically played a central role in the transmission of the craft. Through migratory movements, this tradition spread to the Caribbean, South America and later, via the diaspora, to Europe. Due to processes of slavery and colonization, as well as industrialization and the introduction of synthetic materials such as plastic, the transmission and practice of the craft were disrupted in various contexts. During the residencies, exchanges took place on the context and future of the ceramic tradition. From this shared reflection, the collaborative practice evolved, in which ceramicists take a leading role in transmission and decision-making, while the artist facilitates, documents and conceptually frames the process. Around the Clay develops as a trajectory centered on the collective practice of the ceramic tradition, within communities where the craft has become less present. The trajectory has taken place in Cape Verde, with diaspora communities in Portugal and more recently with the Cape Verdean community in Rotterdam. In 2026, it continues in São Tomé. In each context, ceramicists and communities come together. On surfaces covered with canvas, and under the guidance of ceramicists, the craft is transmitted and local clay is worked according to traditional meanings and skills. Imbued with traces of clay, interaction and the literal imprints of communities, each context generates an archive in which the collective ceramic practice takes material form. Together, these archives form a growing transnational installation in which migration, tradition and women’s narratives converge.
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2020
MeeMakers Voordekunst.nl Amsterdam, Netherlands Co-founder of the collective MeeMakers, focused on artistic participation and community-based art practices. Supported by Stichting Voordekunst, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Platform ACCT and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW).
International exchanges/Residencies
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2025CAC Sal Rei Rabil, Cape Verde Project phase with the ceramic community of Rabil (Boa Vista), supported by the Municipality of Boa Vista and the Centro de Artes e Cultura of Sal Rei (Center for Arts and Culture). annanunesvandenhoven.com/project/a-volta-do-barro/
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2025Verhalenhuis Belvédère Rotterdam, Netherlands Project phase with ceramicist Alcides Morais (Rabil), facilitated by Verhalenhuis Belvédère and community center Post West, with support from the Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie, Stichting MIJ, Gerstaecker BV, the Municipality of Boa Vista and the Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries of Cape Verde. annanunesvandenhoven.com/project/around-the-clay/
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2024Bienal de São Tomé e Príncipe Santana, Sao Tome and Principe Installation developed with children from Santana during the residencies of the X Bienal de São Tomé e Príncipe, (Re)Discovering Ourselves. annanunesvandenhoven.com/project/o-mundo-imaginario/
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2024Fablab Lisbon, Portugal Project phase with ceramicist Isabel Sanches Tavares (Trás-os-Montes). Initiated in Lisbon (2024) and continued in Lisbon and Loulé, with the support of the Municipality of Lisbon, artist Virgínia Fróis and Ricardo Barbosa Vicente, director of the Centro Cultural de Cabo Verde in Lisbon (Cape Verdean Cultural Center). annanunesvandenhoven.com/project/a-volta-do-barro/
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2023São Tomé, Sao Tome and Principe Artistic research conducted in collaboration with the communities of Santana, Ribeira Afonso, Malanza and Porto Alegre, examining the ongoing impact of Atlantic plantation histories on contemporary gender relations and how this legacy shapes women’s relationship to the landscape. Supported by SOMA. annanunesvandenhoven.com/project/the-coloniality-of-gender/
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2017Wageningen University & Research Boé, Guinea-Bissau Ecological research on forests managed and protected through spiritual beliefs and practices, conducted in collaboration with the inhabitants of the villages of Belí, Capebonde and Uncire (Boé region), Wageningen University and the Chimbo Foundation. Recognized in 2018 by Wageningen University for its collaborative research approach.
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2015Wageningen University & Research Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa , South Africa Human-Wildlife Conflict (residency, research project). Partners: Wageningen University & Research, Twana Adventure.
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2011Columbia University New Jersey and New York , United States Trees in the Lamont Forest (residency, research project). Partners: Columbia University, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics.
Commissions
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2025Sculpture CIMART Beerzel, Belgium finished
Sales/Works in collections
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2026Corporate collection CIMART BV Beerzel, België
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2023CBK Zuidoost Amsterdam, Nederland
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2020Corporate collection CIMART BV Beerzel, België
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2020Corporate collection Gruzollo B.V. Prinsenbeek, Nederland
reviews
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2025Rabil recebe residência artística em cerâmica TV RTC Cabo Verde, Cape Verde xn--katchswww-41a.rtc.cv/carnaval/video-details/rabil-recebe-residencia-artistica-em-ceramica-49284#google_vignette Television report on the project À Volta do Barro – Boa Vista.
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2025Alcides Morais leva o projecto “À Volta do Barro” à Holanda (Alcides Morais takes the project “À Volta do Barro” to the Netherlands) Newspaper Dulcina Mendes Expresso das Ilhas, Cape Verde expressodasilhas.cv/ Newspaper article on À Volta do Barro – Rotterdam.
Awards and grants
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2025Project bijdrage Ministerio da Cultura e das Indústrias Criativas Santiago, Cape Verde
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2024Project grant, Internationale Samenwerking Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie Utrecht, Netherlands
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2023Project grant, Verkennen Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie Utrecht, Netherlands
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2018Willem Barentsz Award Wageningen University & Research Wageningen, Netherlands
Secondary art-related activities
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2025 - --Workshop Bonecos: Bamo Brincá
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2025 - --Workshop Bamo Fazê un Poti
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2025 - --Workshop EcoBody Gatherings, Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism, West Den Haag (NL)
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2024 - --VAMOS EXPERIMENTAR, FABLAB Lisbon
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2022 - --Talk Alternative Realities, Museum Night, Amare
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2020 - --Lecture Wild Being, De Lievelinge