The roots of NIK gallery are in Indonesia. There, for the first time, Anneke found time and space do indulge in her two hobbies: art and helping other people. When she took a course in Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Language) in Yogyakarta she met with a young painter. He showed her his work. And he brought her into contact with other painters, who also made good art and who also didn't sell. To make a long story short: we ended up with 6 painters whom we sponsored through exhibitions in our house, with exhibitions in Hotels, in general: with PR and with 'soft loans' to enable them to finish their education, to pay their rent etc. Our house was full of their paintings and during the exhibitions we sold a lot for them. We always used the 'one-night-only' formula and it worked well. The good thing being, that catering is much, much cheaper in Indonesia then in Korea. The other good thing is, that the painters could always be present during the exhibitions and explain their work. We had many nice evenings (and difficult discussions) with them before, during and after the exhibitions.

Gradually we were addressed by several "Yayasan's" (foundations) with wellfare goals, like: earning money for the education of underpriviliged children, giving shelter to handicapped people, rehabilitation of orangutangs, freed from captivity, funding the animal shelter in Jakarta, helping young artists in Yogya to finish their study. In short, we ended up sponsoring a whole lot of charity foundations, many of them small scale, but with a direct and visible impact.

Our house (the entrance hall anyway) gradually transformed itsself into a small shop where the products of all these yayasan's could be obtained, and many people, most expats, found their way to our residence when looking for a gift for birthdays and other occasions.