BIO

Tirza Anna Marguerita Theunissen (1980) is a is a Swiss, Dutch global citizen born in the Netherlands within a large international, Dutch Indonesian family with relatives in Australia, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Scotland and The United States. From an early age, she developed an interest in other cultures and places as well as a deep love for nature, the outdoors and exploring the unknown. She has always had a strong affinity with photography and art, having taken up a camera and being creative from an early age on. Tirza currently resides in Switzerland with her husband and her three adopted dogs.

Her current work evolves around her deep connection with nature and seeks to capture ephemeral moments in nature and the specific moods, feelings and emotions that these evoke thereby connecting the inner with the outer world.

‘Being surrounded by and emerged in nature has a meditative quality for me. To capture the ever changing beauty and mood of a place, requires one to be fully present in the moment, to keenly observe and be patient. With my work, I want to invite the viewer to be part of that moment, to experience the beauty of nature unfolding itself and to connect to nature and one’s feelings and emotions at a deeper level.’

Her choice of materials and techniques for her art is influenced by her Asian heritage and her deep appreciation for Asian philosophy, traditional artistry and craftsmanship.

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EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL CAREER

Her multicultural heritage and desire to contribute to combatting social injustice and inequalities, led Tirza to pursue a MA in Law (Maastricht, the Netherlands) and a LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation (Venice, Italy) with further studies at Oxford University (UK). 

After completion of her studies, she worked for over a decade in the field of international cooperation for organisations such as UNICEF and the Embassy of The Netherlands in Bangladesh and The Asia Foundation in Mongolia and Nepal while having the opportunity to travel to many other countries in the region and beyond. As part of her work, she initiated and developed the proposal for an award winning project establishing Mongolia’s first ever Women’s Business Center which has served over 14,000 women entrepreneurs till date; she initiated the establishment of an annual Women in Data Conference and co-founded a social enterprise focused on making information and data accessible while creating job opportunities for young people in Nepal.

In her spare time, Tirza currently works as a volunteer for the KulturLegi Program of Caritas Bern in Switzerland.