Alite Thijsen

Alite Thijsen (Eibergen, 1957) is an artist and law graduate and lives and works in Amsterdam.
She studied at the Akademie voor Kunst en Industrie in Enschede and at the Universities of Amsterdam and Leiden (specializing in law and administration in developing countries and copyright law).

Her artwork includes drawings, paintings, installations, and videos. Since a long stay in West Africa (1984), which was facilitated by a grant from the BKVB Fund, the different aspects of intercultural dialogue have been at the core of her work.

She is the founder of Stichting ZET Amsterdam (1985), an artist’s initiative that mainly addresses the position of ‘drawing’ in contemporary art.
Stichting ZET promotes and develops international cooperation projects in a broad context with artists from among others China, Canada, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and England.

Through commissions as well as on her own initiative Alite Thijsen has organised a number of international exchange projects and exhibitions in Morocco, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, and Senegal.
She also regularly publishes on art and culture in Africa.
Her video Rue Ponty (Dakar, Senegal) was awarded the prize of the jury (chaired by Hou Hanru) at the Echigo Tsumari Art Triennal in Japan in 2004.