NelNel

METSELARIJ

A new arts sector through collective empowerment

Visual Identity / Branding / Animation

2024

Project info

De Metselarij is redefining the way emerging art professionals grow, learn, and connect. This thriving peer-to-peer learning platform gives creative producers and upcoming art leaders a space to build confidence and become skilled, impactful professionals in the arts. Together, they grow, shape and build the arts of the future.

To bring this vision to life, we created a bold, playful brand identity that mirrors De Metselarij’s mission to foster a community of art professionals ready to challenge conventions. The new visual identity combines vibrant colors, dynamic shapes, and a fresh, personal touch to capture the spirit of creativity and collaboration that defines the platform.

My role started from early concepts and art direction to final design deliveries and beyond, working together with the team of De Metselarij to imagine the future of the arts.

Credits

Communication Lead: Jacqueline Kolff
Business Strategy: Andrea van Wingerden

Hi Creative Producer, Marketeer, Executive Producer, Art Professional,

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Collective empowerment

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De Metselarij

Collective empowerment

Art has always been more than a reflection of culture. It is an active way to shape culture. From ancient rituals to contemporary art practices, art-making creates ripple effects across our social, political, and emotional lives. It offers space for experimentation, dissent and imagination. In moments of big cultural shifts, artists often become the quiet, overlooked and important architects of transformation by leading discourse, giving voice to the marginalized, and creating the symbolic languages we use to navigate our social and political lives.

Yet the conditions under which art is made today are increasingly defined by capitalist logics of speed, output, and visibility. The pressure to endlessly produce and perform for attention, especially within the algorithmic economy of social media, has warped creative labor into something extractive. These forces value quantity over depth and recognition over reflection. The emergence of AI technologies adds a further layer of ethical and existential complexity to artistic practice, intensifying questions of authorship, originality, and value.

At the same time, the Dutch government, like many others across Europe, has systematically defunded the arts over the past two decades. Entire generations of cultural workers now operate in a context of scarcity, precarity, and hyper-competition. Institutions are overstretched, artists are underpaid, and those just starting out often find the barriers to entry insurmountable. How can one find the time, space, and confidence to reflect on their practice – let alone imagine new cultural futures – under these conditions?

This is where De Metselarij steps in.

De Metselarij offers a safe and necessary haven in a cultural landscape that remains rushed, under-resourced, and lacking space for care. It is a space designed not for extraction, but for cultivation. Through a peer-driven learning community, De Metselarij supports early-career art professionals in growing their practice, their voice, and their network. All on their own terms. You learn not from a distant authority, but from one another. This horizontal model of knowledge-sharing centers lived experience and mutual support, creating a culture of solidarity rather than scarcity.

In doing so, De Metselarij is not just training individuals, it is rebuilding the conditions in which art and culture can thrive. It affirms that to sustain the arts, we must first sustain the people who make them possible. It restores time, space, and trust as essential materials of artistic development, especially for those just beginning to imagine their place within the field.

In a time when the cultural sector is under pressure from both economic and technological forces, De Metselarij represents a powerful counter-model. It asks: What if the future of the arts was built not on competition, but on connection? Not on scarcity, but on shared growth?