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Merel Slootheer (The Netherlands) is a dreamer, maker, designer, goldsmith, collector, biophile. In 2004 she received her diploma for goldsmith after a four-year traditional craft training. After that she studied at the designLAB department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. In 2011 she received her Bachelor of Design there. She followed both studies in Amsterdam.

Her work grows from autobiographical elements while aiming for a universal resonance. Learning how to live with the dissonance between mind and body, the longing for creation and the reality of limitation, has become a source of raw material.

'With my work I try to make sense of things I don't understand and question what might be considered obvious. I approach the creative process as I would extensive research and translate my findings into all sorts of creations.​

A recurring theme in my work is the tension between the organic and the manufactured, between what grows and what is produced. My work moves between art jewelry, autonomous objects, illustration and writing.

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I love combining traditional craft with contemporary technology, mixing the conventional with experimental. As a tireless collector of everything I consider beautiful, I see trash and discarded stuff as an exciting category of raw material. Precious or common, either obviously valuable or secretly amazing, wanting to know all about their qualities, strengths and limitations makes material interesting to me.

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Why, when, and how do we bring (even more) things into this overstuffed world? That question always plays a role in what I choose to create. The answer for me lies in care and attention, in learning to know material from the inside out. My work always begins conceptually, but the making process itself — the craft — is an equal part of the whole.'