Meet Sevilay and Micaela in the chapel of Hotel Arena, as part of Amsterdam Art week. The conversation will be hosted by Dymphie Braun. There will be plenty of time to meet and greet.

Reserve your spot via: https://hotelarena.nl/expositie/de-kracht-van-verbeelding/

We live in a world of many challenges. Most of them overwhelming at times. It’s never been that different. Only that the challenges change, as well as the amount of bad news reaching our doorstep. So what’s our role as makers? How can we use our creativity and imagination to have an influence? Not on what people buy or what people believe but how they see themselves and how they interact as a society.

Culture is a mysterious thing. It is omnipresent as it is fluid. It’s comprised by societal rules and expectations, and it’s the result of all of what has been until now. Some of it good, some of it bad and overall far from perfection.

Photographer Sevilay Maria van Dorst has always been fascinated by the prospect of igniting societal change. Her starting point being curiosity. Noticing a group which has been highly misrepresented or ignored, researching the details of their existence and consequently capturing them in a way that gives them strength and visibility.

With her most recent project PR:OUD, which she has developed in cooperation with Micaela Bartels, she aims at revaluing people’s attitude towards aging. An ambitious endeavor given the overall tale of decline and despair we like to share. After two years of intensive research and production the duo has recently launched a coffee table book (39 role models, 352 pages, > 300 portraits) followed by several exhibitions and a huge amount of media attention. A perfect example for the use of art as an accelerator for societal change.