The Dutch Bushman, Toine Klaassen's alter ego, is a years-long exploration of anthropological ways of existing outside the usual social paths. Klaassen does this with performances and installations that have formed a rich source of images in his subconscious – mind maps, hallucinations, deja vu's, dreams. He wanted to tap into these to process in large drawings and paintings of human figures, full of texture and details, so that these reveal different insights into his performances than words, photos or film can. “A hitherto hidden insight into the spiritual world of me as a performance artist will be given.”

Klaassen studied at the Rietveld Academy, but in his art you notice that he did a laboratory course in a previous life. Life and the world is a laboratory for him, where he builds installations and performances in which you can be human in a different way. Often present in his work himself, he appears in exhibitions where he animates objects and materials in a shamanistic way – at Extrapool, Mama, Worm, Villa Zebra and everywhere. The R&D committee read in the unconventional application an intrinsic and authentic wish, a desire to develop its own raw language from his special performances that broaden the art world.

The work period led to an endless number of results that only partly fit into the final report. For example, he started drawing A3 sheets together with charcoal and collage into a Freedom Pavement Avenue or paper road, and then transforming record players into drawing machines for a drawing performance at Worm S/ASH, building a drawing collage in his own studio at a Lab Festival. between parts of a sofa, after which he started a series of paintings with wonderful leading roles for the Dutch Bushman. And with all those floodgates open, he developed a performance installation for IPIHAN in a shampoo factory in Zeitz, Germany. “Only one thing is certain,” he writes in his report, “always keep practicing.”