Contributor Profile

Name	Hanna ten Doornkaat
Place of Birth	Heidelberg
Residence	Kingston upon Thames
Nationality	German

Websites
www.tendoornkaat.co.uk
www.kool-art-cards.com

Email

Bio

It sometimes takes a lifetime to find out what it is we really love doing most. Some of us are lucky enough to eventually get what we want and I consider myself one of them.

From an early age I was interested in anything to do with creativity, be it the making of things – I built my first timber house, which resembled something similar to the huts we know from the shanty towns in Soweto – to painting, drawing, sculpting, fashion design and story writing. Yet, according to my patriarchal father, none of these would offer me a decent occupation.

Instead of following my dream, I went to study English in Cambridge followed by a few months’ work experience in New Delhi, India. I managed my own shop, studied international business, worked as an account administrator in investment banking, as a precious-metal trader, as an English/German/Italian translator for various industries, and became a mother. In 1992, thanks to the transfer of my ex-husband from Switzerland to the United Kingdom, I was finally given the opportunity to study Fine Art (sculpture), which I completed with an MA in 2002.

I have exhibited regularly over the last twenty years, mainly in the United Kingdom but also in Germany. In my role as PR deputy manager for the south-west London community arts organisation, Theatre4All, I have recently become involved in a number of localised exhibitions as well as curating larger exhibitions such as Why Cameras? Not Bread?, an exhibition of photographs taken with one-way cameras by Zambian children that showed in July 2011 at the Strand Gallery, London, and that will be mounted again as part of the Cultural Olympiad in Greater London during the summer of 2012.

My involvement with Theatre4All and a local group of artists has allowed me to discover my talent for networking and events management, which has since led to further opportunities and exhibitions in London. And thus my creative journey continues.

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