Growing up at sea as a skipper’s daughter, imagination and fantasy were nourished by many travels. Staring at waves and clouds for days, not knowing where the next adventure would take place in another city, another country.

Ina Arends studied painting at the art academy and started her career as an artist in Amsterdam. After a number of stipends from the Visual Arts Fund, it was time to pack her bags in search of new adventures. A journey on a cargo ship as a cook, then on to New York museums. After a period in Lisbon, she commuted between Paris and her studio in Amsterdam for a few years before taking root in Brussels for 5 years. She was always interested in interdisciplinary work. She produced high-level projects in the design, dance/performance and food design world and traveled for work to Tokyo, New York, Berlin, Paris, Taipei, Kyiv and Madrid.

In search of further depth, Ina worked for a year with a group of people with physical, intellectual, cognitive and hearing disabilities. Making art, music and fun together. The intense contact in particular was deeply affecting. The unique way of communicating has opened many doors, inspiring Ina to the current development

Now working in her studio in Rotterdam, Ina does a lot of research into this group of people and their role in art history and our current visual culture. Technological and medical developments mean that people with Down syndrome are slowly disappearing from society, for example.

Why is this group rarely depicted now or in the past? Is art capable of changing our ingrained collective idea of disability? Certainly in the work of Ina Arends.