Long Distance Walk as an art form
I started long-distance walks in 2015. I followed the first walk of 3000 kilometres in the footsteps of the British writer Patrick Leigh Fermor. I walked from the North Sea to the Black Sea. In 2018 I started in Amsterdam for a trip of 3500 kilometres to Gibraltar, in the wake of the migratory birds. Amsterdam was again the starting point for the 1000-kilometre walk to the west coast of Ireland in 2019. From 2020 to 2022, I walked north towards the Arctic Circle and beyond. Every trip I investigate the influence of geology on the biotope and thus on the distribution of birds in Europe. Every day when I walk I make a watercolour of the changing landscape. All the birds I encounter, I write down the species and numbers every day, I draw in pen and ink. When I am back in the studio, I immerse myself in the observations and investigate the data I have written down.