Merel Smitt is an interdisciplinary artist based in Rotterdam and works as a director, organizer, curator, social designer, researcher and educator. Her live-art projects take place at the intersection of performative interventions, socially engaged art and cultural activism. Her work is developed site-specific in public spaces, in collaborations with different communities, activists, fellow citizens, academics, philosophers and experts, and is carried out through active participation of different groups of audiences. The projects can be seen as methodologies to reclaim spaces and build platforms in which strangers come together to experience themselves, others and the world in a new and different way.
Her artistic practice has been supported by several platforms in the European contemporary art scene such as SICK! Festival (UK), Metropolis Københvn (DK), Oerol (NL), Over Het IJ Festival (NL), Productiehuis Theater Rotterdam (NL), Giungla Festival (IT), STORMOPKOMST (BE), IN-SITU European Network, ACT (Art Climate Change) and other venues and institutions in The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Bucharest, New York, France, Belgium and Italy.