Lidwien van de Ven is an artist. She has won several awards for her photographic work and installations, including the Maria Austria Award 2001 and the Dolf Henkes Prize in 2014. Her installation work has been shown at international platforms such as the Sydney Biennale, Australia, Documenta 12 in Kassel, Busan Biennale, South Korea, Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
In her work she has always been interested in parts of the world where important social and political changes are taking place. These are also places where the complex reality is often avoided and reduced to stereotypes. Van de Ven is curious to investigate this process. In 2016 she started working on a commission from the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven about Indonesia and the Dutch colonial past. Since then, the colonial past and present and the discourse to question this past in the present have formed an important basis for her new works.